LIBRARY  OF  rRINCnCN 

NOV  2  T  2000 

THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

THE   BRIDGEWATER  TREATISES 

ON    THE 

POWER,  WISDOM,   AND   GOODNESS    OF   GOD, 
AS  MANIFESTED  IN  THE  CREATION. 


TREATISE   I. 

ON  THE  ADAPTATION  OF  EXTERNAL  NATURE,  TO 

THE  MORAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL 

CONSTITUTION  OF  MAN. 

BY  THE  REV.  T.  CHALMERS,  D.  D. 


^^X  Of  fHlHo^ 

ON  THE       (    .  OCT  20  1933    ^ 

POWER,  WISDOM,  AND   GOODNESS 


OF   GOD, 


AS  IVIANIFESTED  IN  THE  ADAPTATION  OF  EXTERNAL  NATURE,  TO  THE 
MORAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  CONSTITUTION  OF  MAN. 


BY    THE 

REV.  THOMAS  CHALMERS,  D.  D., 

PROFESSOR   OF   DIVINITY    IN    THE    UNIVERSITY    OF    EDINBURGH. 


A   NEW    EDITION. 


CAREY,   LEA,   &   BLANCHARD 


1835. 


TO  THE 


RIGHT  HONOURABLE  AND  RIGHT  REVEREND 
CHARLES  JAMES, 

LORD  BISHOP  OF  LONDON. 


MY    LORD, 

Your  Lordship's  personal  kindness  to  myself  would  alone  have 
inclined  me  to  solicit  for  this  work  the  honour  of  your  patronage 
and  name. 

But  I  must  further  confess  the  peculiar  satisfaction  which  1 
feel,  in  offering  it  as  a  tribute  and  a  public  acknowledgment  of 
my  admiration  for  an  order  of  men,  who,  more  than  all  others, 
have  enriched  by  their  labours  the  moral  and  theological  literature 
of  England. 

In  the  prosecution  of  that  arduous  and  hitherto  almost  unat- 
tompted  theme  which  the  late  President  of  the  Royal  Society  has, 
by  your  Lordship's  recommendation,  assigned  to  me,  I  have  de- 
rived greater  aid  from  the  views  and  reasonings  of  Bishop  Butler, 
than  I  have  been  able  to  find  besides,  in  the  whole  range  of  our 
existent  authorship. 

With  his  powerful  aid  I  commenced  the  high  investigation  to 
which  your  Lordship  has  called  me.  To  imagine  that  I  have 
completed  it,  would  be  to  forget  at  once  the  fulness  of  the  Crea- 


VI.  DEDICATION. 

tion,  and  the  finitude  of  the  Creature.  Whatever  the  department 
of  Nature  may  be  which  we  explore,  in  quest  of  evidence  for  the 
perfections  of  its  Author,  there  is  no  inquirer,  though  even  of  the 
most  transcendent  powers,  who  shall  ever  attain  the  satisfaction 
of  having  traversed  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the  land. 
He  will  have  but  entered  and  proceeded  a  certain  way,  within  the 
margin  of  a  territory,  whose  riches  are  inexhaustible. 

That  your  Lordship  may  long  continue,  by  your  zeal,  and  ta- 
lents, and  lofty  erudition,  to  sustain  the  honours,  and  to  promote 
the  vital  good  of  our  Religious  Establishments  in  this  empire,  is 
the  fervent  desire  and  prayer  of 

My  Lord, 

Your  Lordship's  most  obliged 

and  obedient  Servant, 

Thomas  Chalmers. 


Edin.  May  13,  1833. 


NOTICE. 


The  series  of  Treatises,  of  which  the  present  is  one,  is  piib- 
Hshed  under  the  following  circumstances  : 

The  Right  Honourable  and  Reverend  Francis  Henry, 
Earl  of  Bridgewater,  died  in  the  month  of  February,  1829  ; 
and  by  his  last  Will  and  Testament,  bearing  date  the  25th  of 
February,  1825,  he  directed  certain  Trustees  therein  named  to 
invest  in  the  public  funds  the  sum  of  Eight  thousand  pounds 
sterling  ;  this  sum,  with  the  accruing  dividends  thereon,  to  be  held 
at  the  disposal  of  the  President,  for  the  time  being,  of  the  Royal 
Society  of  London,  to  be  paid  to  the  person  or  persons  nomi- 
nated by  him.  The  Testator  further  directed,  that  the  person 
or  persons  selected  by  the  said  President  should  be  appointed  to 
write,  print,  and  publish  one  thousand  copies  of  a  work  On  the 
Power,  Wisdom,  and  Goodness  of  God,  as  manifested  in  the 
Creation  ;  iUustraiing  such  work  by  all  reasonable  arguments,  as 
for  instance  the  varichj  and  formation  of  GocVs  creatures  in  the 
animal,  vegetable,  and  mineral  kingdoms ;  the  effect  of  digestion, 
and  thereby  of  conversion ;  the  construction  of  the  hand  of  man, 
and  an  infinite  variety  of  other  arguments  ;  as  also  by  discoveries 
ancient  and  modern,  in  arts,  sciences,  and  the  whole  extent  of  litera- 
ture. He  desired,  moreover,  that  the  profits  arising  from  the 
sale  of  the  works  so  published  should  be  paid  to  the  authors  of 
the  works. 

The  late  President  of  the  Royal  Society,  Davies  Gilbert,  Esq. 
requested  the  assistance  of  his  Grace  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury and  of  the  Bishop  of  London,  in  determining  upon  the  best 
mode  of  carrying  into  eflect  the  intentions  of  the  Testator.  Act- 
ing with,  their  advice,  and  with  the  concurrence  of  a  nobleman 
immediately  connected  with  the  deceased,  Mr.  Davies  Gilbert 
appointed  the  following  eight  gentlemen  to  write  separate  Trea- 
tises on  the  difTerent  branches  of  the  subject  as  here  stated  : 


VIII.  NOTICE. 

THE  REV.  THOMAS  CHALMERS,  D.  D, 

PROFESSOR  OF  DIVINITY  L\  THK  UNIVKKSITY  OF  EDINBURGH. 

ON  THE  ADAPTATION  OF  EXTERNAL  NATURE  TO  THE  MORAL 
AND    INTELLECTUAL    CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN. 


JOHN  KIDD,  M.  D.  F.  R.  S. 

RKOIUS  PROFESSOR  OF  MEDICINE  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF   OXFORD. 

ON  THE   ADAPTATION  OF  EXTERNAL   NATURE  TO    THE 
PHYSICAL  CONDITION  OF  MAN. 


THE  REV.  WILLIAM  WIIEWELL,  M.  A.  F.  R.  S. 

FELLOW  OF  TRINIPY  COLLEGE,  CAMBRIDGE. 

ON  ASTRONOMY  AND  GENERAL  PHYSICS. 


SIR  CHARLES  BELL,  K.  IL  F.  R.  S. 

THE  HAND:  ITS  MECHANISM  AND  VITAL   ENDOWMENTS 

AS  EVINCING  DESIGN. 


PETER  MARK  ROGET,  M.  I). 

FELLOW  OF  AND  SECRETARY  TO  THE  ROVAL  SOCIE'i'Y. 

ON  ANIMAL   AND   VEGETABLE    PHYSIOLOGY. 


THE  REV.  WILLIAM  BUCKLANU,  I).  1).  F.  R.  S. 

CANON  OF  CHRIST  CHURCH,  AND  PROFESSOR  OF  GEOLOGY  IN  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD. 

ON  GEOLOGY  AND  MINERALOGY. 


THE  REV.  WILLIAM  KHIBY,  Bl.  A.  F.  R.  S. 

ON  THE   HISTORY,  HABITS,  AND    INSTINCTS   OF   ANIMALS. 


WILLIAM  PROUT,  M.  I).  F.  R.  S. 

ON  CHEIVUSTRY,  METEOROLOGY,  AND   THE  FUNCTION 

OF  DIGESTION. 


His  Royal  Highness  the  Duke  of  Sussex,  President 
of  the  Royal  Society,  having  desired  that  no  unnecessary  delay 
should  take  place  in  the  pubhcation  of  the  above  mentioned 
treatises,  they  will  appear  at  short  intervals,  as  they  are  ready 
for  publication. 


CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER 15 


PART  I. 

On  the  Adaptation  op  External  Nature  to  the 
Moral  Constitution  of  Man. 

Chap.   I.    On  the  Supremacy  of  Conscience 41 

II.  Second  General  Argument. 

On  the  Inherent  Pleasure  of  the  Virtuous,  and  Misery  of  the 
Vicious  Affections 62 

III.  Third  General  Argument. 

The  Power  and  Operation  of  Habit 80 

IV.  On  the  General  Adaptation  of  External  Natiure  to  the  Moral 

Constitution  of  Man 93 

V.  On  til e  Special  and  Subordinate  Adaptations  of  External  Na- 
ture to  the  Moral  Constitution  of  Man 108 

YI.  On  those  Special  Affections  which  conduce  to  the  Civil  and 

Political  Well-being  of  Society  .......        123 

VII.  On   those  Special  Affections  wWch  conduce  to  the  Econo- 
mic Well-being  of  Society       156 

VIII.  On  the  Relation  in  which  the  Special  Affections  of  our 
Nature  stand  to  Virtue ;  and  on  the  Demonstration  given 
forth  by  it,  both  to  the  Character  of  man  and  the  Charac- 
ter of  God     182 

IX.  Miscellaneous  Evidences  of  Virtuous  and  Benevolent  De- 
sign, in  the  Adaptation  of  External  Nature  to  the  Moral 
Constitution  of  Man 191 

X.  On  the  Capacities  of  the  World  for  making  a  virtuous  Spe- 
cies happy ;  and  the  Argument  deducible  from  this,  both 
for  the  Character  of  God  and  the  Immortality  of  Man  .     205 


X  CONTENTS. 

PART  II. 

Oh  the  Adaptation  of  External  Nature  to  the  Intellectual 

Constitution  of  Man. 

Chap.  I.  Chieflnstancesof  this  Adaptation 222 

II.  On  the  Connexion  between  the  Intellect  and  the  Emotions    .  247 

III.  On  the  Connexion  between  the  Intellect  and  the  Will       .      .  266 

IV.  On  the  Defects  and  the  Uses  of  Natural  Theology     .     .     .  285 


PREFACE. 

It  is  an  incongruous  thing,  when  there  is  any  want  of  con- 
formity between  the  subject  matter  of  an  essay,  and  its  title. 
The  object  of  this  explanatory  preface  is  to  shew  that  it  is  an 
incongruity  into  which  we  have  not  fallen. 

In  the  first  place  we  were  not  in  fair  circumstances  for  ex- 
pounding the  adaptation  of  external  nature  to  the  mental  consti- 
tution of  man,  till  we  had  made  manifest  in  some  degree  what 
that  constitution  is.  There  is  no  distinct  labourer  in  that  con- 
junct demonstration  of  the  divine  attributes  which  is  now  being 
offered  to  the  world,  to  whom  this  essentially  preliminary  topic 
had  been  assigned  as  the  subject  of  a  separate  work.  It  was 
therefore  unavoidable,  that,  to  a  certain  extent  we  should  under- 
take it  ourselves,  else,  in  proceeding  to  the  constniction  of  our 
argument,  we  might  have  incurred  the  charge  of  attempting  to 
rear  a  superstructure,  without  a  foundation  to  rest  upon. 

But  in  the  execution  of  this  introductory  part  of  our  subject, 
we  could  scarcely  have  refrained  from  noticing  the  indications  of 
divine  wisdom  and  goodness  in  our  mental  constitution  itself, 
even  though  our  strictly  proper,  because  our  assigned  task,  was 
to  point  out  these  indications  in  the  adaptation  of  this  constitu- 
tion to  external  nature.  We  could  not  forget  that  the  general 
purpose  of  the  work  was  to  exhibit  with  all  possible  fulness 
the  argument  for  the  character  of  the  Deity,  as  grounded  on  the 
laws  and  appearances  of  nature.  But  we  should  have  left  out  a 
very  rich  and  important  track  of  argument,  had  we  forborne  all 
observation  on  the  evidence  for  the  divine  perfections,  in  the 
structure  and  processes  of  the  mind  itself,  and  confined  our- 


XU  PREFACE. 

selves  to  the  evidence  afforded  by  the  relations  which  the  mind 
bore  to  the  external  world.  In  the  adaptation  of  external  nature 
to  man's  physical  constitution,  there  are  many  beautiful  and 
decisive  indications  of  a  God.  But  prior  to  these,  there  is  a 
multitude  of  distinct  indications,  both  in  the  human  anatomy,  and 
the  human  physiology,  viewed  by  themselves,  and  as  separate 
objects  of  contemplation.  And  accordingly,  in  this  joint  undertak- 
ing, there  have  been  specific  labourers  assigned  to  each  of  these 
departments.  But  we  have  not  had  the  advantage  of  any  pre- 
vious expounder  for  the  anatomy  of  the  mind,  or  the  physiology 
of  the  mind  ;  and  we  felt  that  to  have  left  unnoticed  all  the  vivid 
and  various  inscriptions  of  a  Divinity,  which  might  be  collected 
there,  would  have  been  to  withhold  from  view  some  of  the  best 
attestations  in  the  whole  range  and  economy  of  nature,  for  the 
wisdom  and  benevolence  of  its  great  architect. 

But  to  construct  a  natural  theology  on  any  subject,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  make  of  that  subject  a  full  scientific  exposition. 
The  one  is  as  distinct  from  the  other,  as  the  study  of  final  is  from 
the  study  of  efficient  causes — the  former  often  lying  patent  to 
observation,  while  the  latter  may  be  still  involved  in  deepest 
obscurity.     It  were  a  manifest  injury  to  our  cause,  it  were  to 
bedim  the  native  lustre  of  its  evidences — did  we  enter  with  it 
among  the  recondite  places  of  the  mental  philosophy,  and  there 
enwrap  it  in  the  ambiguity  of  questions  yet  unresolved,  in  the 
mist  of  controversies  yet  unsettled.     Often,  though  not  always, 
the  argument  for  a  God  in  some  phenomenon  of  nature  depends 
upon  its  reality,  and  not  upon  its  analysis,  or  the  physical  mode 
of  its  organization — on  the  undoubted  truth  that  so  it  is,  and  not 
on  the  undetermined,  perhaps  indeterminable  question  of  how  it 
is.     We  should  not  have  shrunk  from  the  obscurer  investigation, 
had  it  been  at  all  necessary.     But  that  is  no  reason  why  time 
must  be  consumed  on  matters  which  are  at  once   obscure  and 
irrelevant.     It  is  all  the  more  fortunate  that  we  are  not  too  long 
detained  from  an  entry  on  our  proper  task,  among  the  depths  or 
the  difficulties  of  any  preliminary  disquisition  which  comes  before 


PREFACE.  Xlll 

it — and  that  the  main  strength  of  the  argument  which  our  mental 
constitution,  taken  by  itself,  furnishes  to  the  cause  of  theism, 
Hes  not  in  those  subtiltics  which  are  apprehended  only  by  few, 
but  in  certain  broad  and  palpable  generalities  which  are  recog- 
nised by  all  men. 

But  there  is  another  explanation  which  we  deem  it  necessary 
to  make,  in  order  fully  to  reconcile  the  actual  topics  of  our  essay, 
with  the  designation  which  has  been  prefixed  to  it. 

If  by  external  nature  be  meant  all  that  is  external  to  mmd, 
then  the  proper  subject  of  our  argument  is  the  adaptation  of  the 
material  to  the  mental  world.  But  if  by  external  nature  be 
meant  all  that  is  external  to  one  individual  mind,  then  would  the 
subject  be  very  greatly  extended  ;  for  beside  the  reciprocal  in- 
influence  between  that  individual  mind,  and  all  sensible  and 
material  things,  we  should  consider  the  reciprocal  influence  be- 
tween it  and  all  other  minds.  By  this  contraction  of  the  idea 
from  the  mental  world  to  but  one  individual  member  of  it ;  and 
this  proportional  extension  in  the  idea  of  external  nature  from 
the  material  creation  to  the  whole  of  that  living,  as  well  as  inani- 
mate creation,  by  which  any  single  man  is  surrounded  ;  we  are 
introduced  not  merely  to  the  action  and  reaction  whrch  obtain 
between  mind  and  matter  ;  but,  which  is  far  more  proline  of  evi- 
dence for  a  Deity,  to  the  action  and  reaction  which  obtain  be- 
tween mind  and  mind.  We  thus  find  access  to  a  much  larger 
territory,  which  should  otherwise  be  left  unei:plored — and  have 
the  opportunity  of  tracing  the  marks  of  a  divine  intelligence  in 
the  mechanism  of  human  society,  and  in  the  frame-work  of  the 
social  and  economical  systems  to  which  men  are  conducted, 
when  they  adhere  to  that  light,  and  follow  the  impulse  of  those 
affections  which  God  has  bestowed  on  them. 

But  in  the  progress  of  our  argument,  we  come  at  length  to  be 
engaged  with  the  adaptations  of  external  nature,  even  in  the  most 
strict  and  limited  sense  of  the  term.  In  the  origin  and  rights  of 
property,  as  well  as  in  the  various  economic  interests  of  society, 
we  behold  the  purest  exemplification  of  that  adjustment  which 


XIV  PREFACE. 

obtains  between  the  material  system  of  things  and  man's  moral 
nature — and  when  we  proceed  to  treat  of  his  intellectual  consti- 
tution, it  will  be  found  that  the  harmonies  between  the  material 
and  the  mental  worlds  are  still  more  numerous,  and  more  palpa- 
bly indicative  of  that  wisdom  which  originated  both,  and  con- 
formed them  with  exquisite  and  profound  skill  to  each  other. 


INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER. 


GENERAL  AND    PRELIMINARY   OBSERVATIONS. 

1.   External  nature,  when  spoken  of  in  contradistinction   to 
mind,  suggests  chiefly,  if  not  solely,  the  idea  of  the  material  uni- 
verse.    Even  though  restricted  to  this  limited  and  proper  sense 
of  the  term,  we  should  still  behold  the  proofs  of  beneficent  design 
in  the  fitnesses  of  the  one  to  the  other ;  but  far  more  abundantly 
and  decisively,  it  must  be  confessed,  in  the  adaptation  of  exter- 
nal nature  to  the  physical,  than  in  its  adaptation  to  the  moral  and 
intellectual  constitution  of  man.     For  fully  developing  our  pecu- 
liar argument,  an  enlargement  of  the  meaning  commonly  affixed 
to  external  nature  seems  indispensable, — an  enlargement  that 
we  should  not  have  ventured  on,  if  in  so  doing  we  crossed  the 
legitimate  boundaries  of  our  assigned  subject ;  and  that,  for  the 
mere  purpose  of  multiplying  our  topics,  or  possessing  ourselves 
of  a  wider  field  of  authorship.    But  the  truth  is,  that  did  we  confine 
our  notice  to  the  relations  which  obtain  between  the  world  of 
mind  and  the  world  of  matter,  we  should  be  doing  injustice  to  our 
own  theme,  by  spoiling  it  of  greatly  more  than  half  its  richness — 
beside    leaving  unoccupied  certain  fertile  tracts    of  evidence, 
which,  if  not  entered  upon  in  our  division  of  the  general  work, 
must,  as  is  obvious  from  the  nature  of  the  respective  tasks,  be 
altogether  omitted  in  the  conjunct  demonstration  that  is  now  being 
oflered  to  the  public,  of  the  Goodness  and  Wisdom  of  the  Deity. 
2.   It  is  true  that,  with  even  but  one  solitary  human  mind  in 
midst  of  the  material  creation,  certain  relations  could  be  traced 
between  them  that  would  indicate  both  skill  and  a  benevolent 
purpose  on  the  part  of  Jlim  who  constructed  the  framework  of 
nature,  and  placed  this  single  occupier  within  its  confines.    And, 
notwithstanding  this  limitation,  there  would  still  be  preserved  to 
us  certain  striking  adaptations  in  the  external  system  of  things  to 
the  intellectual,  and  some  too,  though  fewer  and  less  noticeable, 
to  the  moral  constitution  of  man.      But,  born  as  man  obviously  is 
for  the  companionship  of  his  fellows,  it  must  be  evident  that  the 
main  tendencies  and  aptitudes  of  his  moral  constitution  should 
be  looked  for  in  connection  with  his  social  relationships,  with  the 
action  and  reaction  which  take  place  between  man  and  the  brethren 


16  INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER. 

of  his  species.  We  therefore  understand  external  nature  to  com- 
prehend in  it,  not  merely  all  that  is  external  to  mind,  but  all  that 
is  external  to  the  individual  possessor  of  a  human  mind,— who  is 
surrounded  not  only  by  an  economy  of  complex  and  extended 
materialism,  but  who  is  surrounded  by  other  men  and  other  minds 
than  his  own.  Without  this  generalized  view  of  external  nature, 
we  should  be  left  in  possession  of  but  scanty  materials  for  evinc- 
ing its  adaptation  to  the  moral  constitution  of  man,  though  an 
ample  field  of  observation  would  still  lie  open  to  us,  in  unfolding 
the  aptitude  of  the  human  understanding,  with  its  various  instincts 
and  powers,  for  the  business  of  physical  investigation.  For  the 
purpose  then  of  enhancing  our  argument,  or  rather  of  doing  but 
justice  to  it,  we  propose  to  consider  not  merely  those  relations 
between  mind  and  matter,  but  those  relations  between  mind  and 
mind,  the  establishment  of  which  attests  a  w-ise  and  beneficent 
contrivance.  We  shall  thus  be  enabled  to  enter  on  a  department 
of  observation  distinct  from  that  of  all  the  other  labourers  in  this 
joint  enterprize, — and  while  their  provinces  respectively  are  to 
trace  the  hand  of  a  great  and  good  Designer  in  the  mechanism 
of  the  heavens,  or  the  mechanism  of  the  terrestrial  physics,  or  the 
mechanism  of  various  organic  structures  in  the  animal  and  vege- 
table kingdoms  ;  it  will  be  part  of  ours,  more  especially,  to  point 
out  the  evidences  of  a  forming  and  presiding,  and  withal  benevo- 
lent intelligence  in  the  mechanism  of  human  society. 

3.  We  conceive  of  external  nature  then  that  it  comprehends 
more  than  the  mute  and  unconscious  materialism,  and  the  objec- 
tive truth — it  comprehends  also  the  living  society  by  which  the 
possessor  of  a  moral  and  intellectual  constitution  is  surrounded. 
Did  we  exclude  the  latter  from  our  regards,  we  should  be  keep- 
ing out  of  view  a  number  of  as  wise,  and  certainly,  in  the  degree 
that  mind  is  of  higher  consideration  than  body,  of  far  more  bene- 
ficial and  important  adaptations  than  any  which  are  presented  to 
our  notice  in  the  mechanical,  or  chemical,  or  physiological  depart- 
ments of  creation.  Both  in  the  reciprocities  of  domestic  life, 
and  in  those  wider  relations,  which  bind  large  assemblages  of 
men  into  political  and  economical  systems,  we  shall  discern  the 
incontestable  marks  of  a  divine  wisdom  and  care ;  principles  or 
laws  of  human  nature  in  virtue  of  which  the  social  economy 
moves  rightly  and  prosperously  onward,  and  apart  from  which  all 
would  go  into  derangement ;  affinities  between  man  and  his  fel- 
lows, that  harmonize  the  individual  with  the  general  interests,  and 
are  obviously  designed  as  provisions  for  the  well-being  both  of 
families  and  nations. 

4.  It  might  help  to  guard  us  against  a  possible  misconception, 
if  now,  at  the  outset  of  our  argument,  we  shall  distinguish  be- 


INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER.  17 

tvveen  the  moral  constitution  of  man,  and  that  moral  system  of 
doctrine  which  embodies  in  it  the  outer  trutlis  or  principles  of 
ethical  science.  The  two  are  as  distinct  from  each  other,  as  are 
the  objective  and  subjective  in  any  quarter  of  contemplation 
whatever,  and  ought  no  more  to  be  confounded  than,  in  optics, 
the  system  of  visible  things  with  the  anatomical  structure  of  the 
eye.  The  organ  which  perceives  or  apprehends  truth  is  sepa- 
rate in  reality,  and  should  be  kept  separate  in  thought,  from  the 
truth  which  is  apprehended  ;  and  thus  it  is  that  we  should  view 
the  moral  constitution  of  man  and  the  moral  system  of  virtue  as 
diverse  and  dis:tinct  from  each  other.  The  one  belongs  to  the 
j)hysiology  of  the  mind,  and  is  collected,  like  all  other  experi- 
mental truth,  by  a  diligent  observation  of  facts  and  phenomena. 
The  other,  involving,  as  it  does,  those  questions  which  relate  to 
the  nature  of  virtue,  or  to  the  origin  and  principles  of  moral 
obligation,  directs  the  attention  of  the  mind  to  another  cpiarter 
than  to  its  own  processes,  and  presents  us  with  a  wholly  distinct 
matter  of  contemplation.  The  acts  of  moral  judgment  or  feel- 
ing should  not  be  confounded  with  the  objects  of  moral  ju.dgment 
or  feeling,  any  more,  in  fact,  than  the  rules  of  logic  should  be 
confounded  with  the  laws  which  govern  the  procedure  of  the  hu- 
man understanding.  The  question,  "what is  virtue?"  or  "  what 
is  that  which  constitutes  virtue  ?"  is  one  thing.  The  question, 
'*  what  is  the  mental  process  by  which  man  takes  cognizance  of 
virtue?"  is  another.  They  are  as  distinct  Irom  each  other  as 
are  the  principles  of  good  reasoning  from  the  processes  of  the 
reasoning  faculty.  It  is  thus  that  the  mental  philosophy,  whose 
proper  and  legitimate  province  is  the  physics  of  the  mind,  should 
be  kept  distinct  from  logic  and  ethics,  and  the  philosophy  of  taste. 
The  question,  "  what  is  beautiful  in  scenery  ?"  or  "  what  is  right 
in  character?"  or  "  what  is  just  in  argument  ?"  is  distinct  from 
the  question,  •'  what  is  the  actual  and  historical  procedure  of  the 
mind  in  addressing  itself  to  these  respective  objects  of  contem- 
plation?" as  distinct,  indeed,  as  the  question  o[ '■^  Quid  esV^  is 
from  ^^  Quid  oporlet;"  or  as  the  question  of  "  what  is"  from 
"  what  ought  to  be."*  A  sound  objective  system  of  ethics  may 
be  framed,  irrespective  of  any  attention  that  we  give  to  man's 
moral  constitution.  A  sound  system  of  logic  may  be  framed, 
irrespective  of  any  attention  that  we  give  to  man's  intellectual 

+  See  the  Introduction  to  Sir  James  Macintosh's  Ethical  Dissertation.  "  The 
purpose  of  the  physical  sciences,  throughout  all  their  provhices,  is  to  answer  the  ques- 
tion, "  IVIiatisP''  The  purpose  of  the  moral  sciences  is  to  answer  the  question, 
<'  What  ought  to  be  ?" — It  should  be  well  kept  in  view,  that  mental  philosophy  is  one 
province  of  the  physical  sciences,  and  belongs  to  the  first  of  these  two  departments, 
bein"  distinct  from  moral  philosophy,  which  forms  the  second  of  them. 

2-^ 


18  INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER. 

constitution.  And  on  the  other  hand,  however  obscure  or  un- 
settled these  sciences  may  still  be ;  and  more  especially,  what- 
ever controversies  may  yet  obtain  respecting  the  nature  and  the 
elementary  principles  of  virtue, — such  notwithstanding,  may  be 
the  palpable  and  ascertained  facts  in  the  nature  and  history  of 
subjective  man,  that,  both  on  his  mental  constitution,  and  on  the 
adaptation  thereto  of  external  nature,  there  might  remain  a  clear 
and  unquestionable  argument  for  the  power,  and  wisdom,  and 
goodness  of  God. 

5,  Having  thus  referred  our  argument,  not  to  the  constitu- 
tion of  morality  in  the  abstract,  but  to  the  constitution  of  man's 
moral  nature — a  concrete  and  substantive  reality,  made  up  of 
facts  that  come  within  the  domain  of  observation ;  let  us  now 
consider  how  it  is  that  natural  theology  proceeds  with  her  de- 
monstrations, on  other  constitutions  and  other  mechanisms  in 
creation,  that  we  may  learn  from  this  in  what  manner  we  should 
commence  and  prosecute  our  labours,  on  that  very  peculiar,  we 
had  almost  said,  untried  field  of  investigation  which  has  been 
assigned  to  us. 

6.  The  chief  then,  or  at  least  the  usual  subject-matter  of  the 
argument  for  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  God,  is  the  obvious 
adaptation  wherewith  creation  teems,  throughout  all  its  borders, 
of  means  to  a  benencial  end.  And  it  is  manifest  that  the  argu- 
ment grows  in  strength  with  the  number  and  complexity  of 
these  means.  The  greater  the  number  of  independent  circum- 
stances which  must  meet  together  for  the  production  of  a  use- 
ful result — then,  in  the  actual  fact  of  their  concurrence ,  is  there 
less  of  probability  for  its  being  the  effect  of  chance,  and  more 
of  evidence  for  its  being  the  effect  of  design.  A  beneficent 
combination  of  three  independent  elements  is  not  so  impressive 
cr  so  strong  an  argument  for  a  divinity,  as  a  similar  combina- 
tion of  six  or  ten  such  elements.  And  every  mathematician, 
conversant  in  the  doctrine  of  probabilities,  knows  how  with 
every  addition  to  the  number  of  these  elements,  the  argument 
grows  in  force  and  intensity,  with  a  rapid  and  multiple  augmen-' 
tation — till  at  length,  in  some  of  the  more  intricate  and  manifold 
conjunctions,  those  more  particularly  having  an  organic  cha- 
racter and  structure,  could  we  but  trace  them  to  an  historical 
commencement,  v.e  should  find,  on  the  principles  of  computa- 
tion alone,  that  the  argument  against  their  being  fortuitous  pro- 
ducts, and  for  theii"  being  the  products  of  a  scheming  and  skil- 
fid  artificer,  was  altogether  overpowering. 

7.  We  might  apply  this  consideration  to  various  departments 
in  nature.  In  astronomy,  the  independent  elements  seem  but 
few  and  simple,  which  must  meet  together  for  the  composition 


INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER.  19 

of  a  planetarium.  One  uniform  law  of  gravitation,  with  a  force 
of  projection  impressed  by  one  impulse  on  each  of  the  bodies, 
could  suffice  to  account  for  the  revolutions  of  the  planets  round 
the  sun,  and  of  the  satellites  around  their  primaries,  along  with 
the  diurnal  revolution  of  each,  and  the  varying  inciinatiims  of 
the  axes  to  the  planes  of  their  respective  orbits.  Out  of  such 
few  contingencies,  the  actual  orrery  of  the  heavens  has  been 
framed.  But  in  anatomy,  to  fetch  the  opposite  illustration  from 
another  science,  what  a  complex  and  crowded  combination  of 
individual  elements  must  first  be  effected,  ere  v/e  obtain  the 
composition  of  an  eye, — for  the  completion  of  which  mechan- 
ism, there  must  not  only  be  a  grCvater  number  of  separate  laws, 
as  of  refraction  and  muscular  action  and  secretion  ;  but  a  vastly 
greater  number  of  separate  and  distinct  parts,  as  the  lenses,  and 
the  retina,  and  the  optic  nerve,  and  the  eye-lid  and  eye-lashes, 
and  the  various  muscles  v>herev»ith  this  delicate  organ  is  so 
curiously  beset,  and  each  of  which  is  indispensable  to  its  per- 
fection, or  to  the  right  performance  of  its  functions.  It  is  pass- 
ing marvellous  that  we  should  have  more  intense  evidence  for  a 
God  in  the  construction  of  an  eye,  than  in  the  construction  of 
the  mighty  planetarium — or  that,  within  less  than  the  compass 
of  a  handbreadth,  we  should  find  in  this  lower  world  a  more 
pregnant  and  legible  inscription  of  the  Divinity,  than  can  be 
gathered  from  a  broad  and  magnificent  survey  of  the  skies, 
lighted  up  though  they  be,  with  the  glories  and  the  wonders  of 
astronomy. 

8.  But  while  nothing  can  be  more  obvious  than  that  the 
proof  for  design  in  any  of  the  natural  Ibrmations,  is  the  stronger, 
in  proportion  to  the  number  of  separate  and  independent  ele- 
ments which  have  been  broujijht  toijether,  and  each  of  which 
contributes  essentially  to  its  usefulness — we  have  long  held  it  of 
prime  importance  to  the  thei:jtical  argument,  that  clear  exhibition 
vshould  be  made  of  a  distinction  not  generally  adverted  to,  which 
obtains  between  one  set  of  these  elements  and  another.  We 
shall  illustrate  this  by  a  material,  ere  we  apply  it  to  a  mental 
workmanship. 

9.  There  is,  then,  a  difiercnce  of  great  argumentative  im- 
j>ortance  in  this  whole  question,  between  the  Laws  of  Matter 
and  the  Dispositions  of  Matter.  In  astronomy,  for  example, 
when  attending  to  the  mechanism  of  the  planetary  system,  we 
should  instance  at  most  but  two  laws — the  law  of  gravitation  ; 
and  perhaps  the  law  of  perseverance,  on  the  part  of  all  bodies, 
whether  in  a  state  of  rest  or  of  motion,  till  interrupted  by  some 
external  cause.  But  had  we  to  state  the  dispositions  of  matter 
in  the  planetary  system,  we  should  instance  a  greater  number  of 


20  INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER. 

particulars.  We  should  describe  the  arrangement  of  its  various 
parts,  whether  in  respect  to  situation,  or  magnitude,  or  figure — 
as  the  position  of  a  large  and  luminous  mass  in  the  centre,  and 
of  the  vastly  smaller  but  opaque  masses  which  circulated  around 
it,  but  at  such  distances  as  not  to  interfere  with  each  other,  and 
of  the  still  smaller  secondary  bodies  which  revolved  about  the 
planets  :  And  we  should  include  in  this  description  the  impulses 
in  one  direction,  and  nearly  in  one  plane,  given  to  the  different 
moving  bodies  ;  and  so  regulated,  as  to  secure  the  movement 
of  each,  in  an  orbit  of  small  eccentricity.  The  dispositions  of 
matter  in  the  planetary  system  were  fixed  at  the  original  setting 
up  of  the  machine.  The  laws  of  matter  were  ordained  for  tho 
working  of  the  machine.  The  former,  that  is  the  disposition-^, 
make  up  the  frame-work,  or  what  may  be  termed  the  apparatus 
of  the  system.  The  latter,  that  is  the  laws,  ujihold  the  perform- 
ance of  it. 

10.  Now  the  tendency  of  atheistical  writers  is  to  reason  ex- 
clusively on  the  laws  of  matter,  and  to  overlook  its  dispositions. 
Could  all  the  beauties  and  benefits  of  the  astronomical  svsteni 
be  referred  to  the  single  law  of  gravitation,  it  would  greatly  re- 
duce the  strength  of  the  argument  for  a  designirsg  cause.  La 
Place,  as  if  to  fortify  still  more  the  atheism  of  such  a  speculation, 
endeavoured  to  demonstrate  of  this  lav,' — that,  in  respect  of  its 
being  inversely  proportional  to  the  square  of  the  distance  from 
the  centre,  it  is  an  essesitial  property  of  matter.  La  Grange  had 
previously  established — that  but  for  such  a  pro})ortion,  or  by  the 
deviation  of  a  thousandth  part  from  it,  the  planetary  system 
would  go  into  derangement — or,  in  other  ^vords,  that  the  law, 
such  as  it  is,  was  essential  to  the  stability  of  the  present  mun- 
dane constitution.  Jja  Place  would  have  accredited  the  law, 
the  unconscious  and  unintelligent  law,  that  thing  according  to 
him  of  blind  necessity,  with  the  whole  of  this  noble  and  beauti- 
ful result — overlooking  what  La  Grange  held  to  be  indispensa- 
ble as  concurring  elements  in  his  demonstration  of  it — certain 
dispositions  along  with  the  law — such  as  the  movement  of  all 
the  planets,  first  in  one  direction,  second  nearly  in  one  phme, 
and  then  in  nearly  circular  orbits.  We  are  aware  that  according 
to  the  discoveries,  or  rather  perhaps  to  the  guesses  of  some 
later  analysts,  the  three  last  circumstances  might  be  dispensed 
with  ;  and  yet  notwithstanding,  the  planetary  system,  its  errors 
still  remaining  periodical,  Avould  in  virtue  of  the  single  law  oscil- 
late around  a  mean  state  that  should  be  indestructible  and  ever- 
lasting. Should  this  come  to  be  a  conclusively  settled  doctrine 
in  the  science,  it  will  extenuate,  we  admit,  the  argument  for  a 
designing  cause  in  the  formation  of  the  planetarium.    But  it  will 


INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER.  21 

not  annihilate  that  argument — for  there  do  remain  certain  pal- 
pable utilities  in  the  dispositions  as  well  as  laws  of  the  planetary 
system,  acknowledged  by  all  the  astronomers  ;  such  as  the 
vastly  superior  weight  and  quantity  of  matter  accumulated  in  its 
centre,  and  the  local  establishment  there  of  that  great  fountain 
of  lif?ht  and  heat  from  which  the  surroundino;  worlds  receive 
throughout  the  whole  of  their  course  an  equable  dispensation. 
^Vhat.a  mal-adjustment  would  it  have  been,  had  the  luminous 
and  the  opaque  matter  changed  places  in  the  firmament ;  or  the 
planets,  by  the  eccentricity  of  their  orbits,  been  subject  to  such 
vicissitudes  of  temperature,  as  would  certainly,  in  our  own  at 
least,  have  entailed  destruction  both  on  the  animal  and  vegetable 
kingdoms. 

11.  But  whatever  defect  or  doubtfulness  of  evidence  there 
may  be  in  the  mechanism  of  the  heavens — this  is  amply  made 
up  for  in  a  more  accessible  mechanism,  near  at  hand.  If  either 
the  dispositions  of  matter  in  the  former  mechanism  be  so  few,  or 
the  demonstrable  results  of  its  single  laAv  be  so  independent  of 
them,  that  the  agency  of  design  rather  than  of  necessity  or  chance 
be  less  manifest  than  it  otherwise  would  be  in  the  astronomical 
system  ;  nothing  on  the  other  hand  can  exceed  the  force  and  con- 
centration of  that  proof,  which  is  crowded  to  so  marvellous  a  de- 
gree of  enhancement  within  the  limits  of  the  anatomical  system. 
It  is  this  which  enables  us  to  draw  so  much  weightier  an  argument 
for  a  God,  from  the  construction  of  an  eye  than  from  the  con- 
struction of  a  planetarium.  And  here  it  is  quite  palpable,  that  it 
is  in  the  dispositions  of  matter  more  than  in  the  laws  of  matter, 
where  the  main  strength  of  the  argument  lies,  though  we  hear 
much  more  of  the  wisdom  of  Nature's  laws,  than  of  the  wisdom 
of  her  collocations.*  Now  it  is  true  that  the  law  of  refraction  is 
indispensable  to  the  faculty  of  vision  ;  but  the  laws  indispensable 
to  this  result  are  greatly  outnumbered  by  the  dispositions  which 

*  This  distinction  between  the  laws  and  collocations  of  matter  is  overlooked  hy 
atheistical  writers,  as  in  the  following  specimen  from  the  "  Sysleme  dc  la  Nature"  of 
Mirabaud.  "  These  prejudiced  dreamers,"  speakinfj  of  believers  in  a  God,  "  arc  iti 
an  extacy  at  the  sight  of  the  periodical  motion  of  the  planets  ;  at  the  order  of  the  stars  ; 
at  the  various  productions  of  the  earth  ;  at  the  astonishing  harmony  in  the  component 
parts  of  animals.  In  that  moment  however,  they  forget  the  laws  of  motion  ;  the  pow- 
er of  gravitation  ;  the  forces  of  attraction  and  repulsion  ;  they  assign  all  these  striking 
phenomena  to  unknown  causes,  of  which  they  have  no  one  substantive  idea." 

When  Professor  Robison  felt  alarmed  by  the  attempted  demonstration  of  La 
Place,  that  the  law  of  gravitation  was  an  essential  property  of  matter,  lest  ihe  cause 
of  natural  theology  should  be  endangered  by  it — he  might  have  recollected  that  the 
main  evidence  for  a  Divinity  lies  not  in  the  laws  of  matter,  but  in  their  collocations — 
because  of  the  utter  inadequacy  in  the  existing  laws  to  have  originated  the  existing 
collocations  of  the  material  world.  So  that  if  ever  a  time  was,  when  these  collocations 
were  not — there  is  no  virtue  in  the  laws  that  can  account  for  their  commencement,  or 
that  supersedes  the  fiat  of  a  God. 


22  INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER. 

are  indispensable  to  it — such  as  the  rightly  sized  and  shaped 
lenses  of  the  eye  ;  and  the  rightly  placed  retina  spread  out  behind 
them,  and  at  the  precise  distance  where  the  indispensable  picture 
of  external  nature  might  be  formed,  and  presented  as  it  were  for 
the  information  of  the  occupier  within  ;  and  then,  the  variety  and 
proper  situation  of  the  numerous  muscles,  each  entrusted  with 
an  important  function,  and  all  of  them  contributing  to  the  power 
and  perfection  of  this  curious  and  manifoldly  complicated  organ. 
It  is  not  so  much  the  endowment  of  matter  with  certain  proper- 
ties, as  the  arrangement  of  it  into  certain  parts,  that  bespeaks 
here  the  hand  of  an  artist ;  and  this  will  be  found  true  of  the  ana- 
tomical structure  in  all  its  departments.  It  is  not  the  mere  chem- 
ical property  of  the  gastric  juice  that  impresses  the  belief  of  con- 
trivance ;  but  the  presence  of  the  gastric  juice,  in  the  very  situa- 
tion whence  it  comes  forth  to  act  with  advantage  on  the  food, 
when  received  into  the  stomach,  and  there  submitted  to  a  diges- 
tive process  for  the  nourishment  of  the  animal  economy.  It  is 
well  to  distinguish  these  two  things.  If  we  but  say  of  matter  that 
it  is  furnished  with  such  powers  as  make  it  subservient  to  many 
useful  results,  we  keep  back  the  strongest  and  most  unassailable 
part  of  the  argument  for  a  God.  It  is  greatly  more  pertinent  and 
convincing  to  say  of  matter,  that  it  is  distributed  into  such  parts 
as  to  ensure  a  right  direction  and  a  beneficial  application  for  its 
powers.  It  is  not  so  much  in  the  establishment  of  certain  laws 
for  matter,  that  we  discern  the  aims  or  the  purposes  of  intelli- 
gence, as  in  certain  dispositions  of  matter,  that  put  it  in  the  way 
of  being  usefully  operated  upon  by  the  laws.  Insomuch,  that 
though  we  conceded  to  the  atheist,  the  eternity  of  matter,  and  the 
essentially  inherent  character  of  all  its  laws — we  could  still  point 
out  to  him,  in  the  manifold  adjustments  of  matter,  its  adjustments 
of  place,  and  figure,  and  magnitude,  the  most  impressive  signa- 
tures of  a  Deity.  And  what  a  countless  variety  of  such  adjust- 
ments within  the  compass  of  an  animal,  or  even  a  vegetable 
frame-work.  In  particular,  what  an  amount  and  condensation  of 
evidence  for  a  God  in  the  workmanship  of  the  human  body. 
IVhat  bright  and  convincing  lessons  of  theology  might  man, 
(would  he  but  open  his  eyes,)  read  on  his  ov^^n  person — that  mi- 
crocosm of  divine  art,  where  as  in  the  sentences  of  a  perfect  epi- 
tome, he  might  trace  in  every  lineament  or  member  the  finger  and 
authorship  of  the  Godhead. 

12.  In  the  performances  of  human  art,  the  argument  for  de- 
sign that  is  grounded  on  the  useful  dispositions  of  matter,  stands 
completely  disentangled  from  the  argument  that  is  grounded  on 
th©  useful  laws  of  matter — lor  in  every  implement  or  piece  of 
mechanism  constructed  by  the  hands  of  man,  it  is  in  the  lattei 


INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER.  23 

apart  from  the  former,  that  the  indications  of  contiivance  wholly 
and  exclusively  he.     We  do  not  accredit  man  with  the  establish- 
ment of  any  laws  for  matter — yet  he  leaves  enough  by  which  to 
trace  the  operations  of  his  intelligence  in  the  collocations  of  mat- 
ter.    He  does  not  give  to  matter  any  of  its  properties  ;   but  he 
arranges  it  into  parts — and  by  such  arrangement  alone,  does  he 
impress  upon  his  workmanship  the  incontestable  marks  of  de- 
sign ;  not  in  that  he  has  communicated  any  powers  to  matter, 
but  in  that  he  has  intelligently  availed  himself  of  these  powers, 
and  directed  them  to  an  obviously  beneficial  result.     The  watch- 
maker did  not  give  its  elasticity  to  the  main-spring,  nor  its  regu- 
larity to  the  balance-wheel,  nor  its  transparency  to  the  glass,  nor 
the  momentum  of  its  varying  forces  to  the  levers  of  his  mecha- 
nism,— yet  is  the  whole  replete  with  the  marks  of  intelligence 
notwithstanding,  announcing  throughout  the  hand  of  a  maker  who 
had  an  eye  on  all  these  properties,  and  assigned  the  right  place 
and  adjustment  to  each  of  them,  in  fashioning  and  bringing  to- 
gether the  parts  of  an  instrument  for  the  measurement  and  the 
indication  of  time.     Now,  the  same  distinction  can  be  observed 
in  all  the  specimens  of  natural  mechanism.     It  is  true  that  we 
accredit  the  author  of  these  with  the  creation  and  laws  of  matter, 
as  well  as  its  dispositions  ;   but  this  does  not  hinder  its  being  in 
the  latter  and  not  in  the  former,  where  the  manifestations  of  skill 
are  most  apparent,  or  where  the   chief  argument  for  a  divinity 
lies.     The  truth  is,  that  mere  laws,  without  collocations,  would 
have  afforded  no  security  against  a  turbid  and  disorderly  chaos. 
One  can  imagine  of  all  the  substantive  things  which  enter  into 
the  composition  of  a  watch,  that  they  may  have  been  huddled 
together,  without  shape,  and  without  collocation,  into   a  little 
chaos,  or   confused  medley  ; — where,  in  full  possession  of  all 
the  properties  which  belong  to  the  matter  of  the  instrument,  but 
without  its  dispositions,  every  evidence  of  skill  would  have  been 
wholly  obliterated.     And  it  is  even  so  with  all  the  substantive 
things  which  enter  into  the  composition  of  a  world-     Take  but 
their  forms  and  collocations  away  from  them,  and  this  goodly 
universe   would  instantly  lapse  into   a  heaving  and  disorderb 
chaos — yet  without  stripping  matter  of  any  of  its  properties  ^I" 
powers.     There  might  still,  though  operating  with  randr  *    " 
undirected  activity,  be  the  laws  of  impulse,  and  g^^vjJ-'-^hern" 
magnetism,  and  temperature,  and  light,  and  the  foi'S^vever  abo 
try,  and  even  those  physiological  tendencies,  whicj^pj,.jj  ^^  ^  q    ' 
tive  in  a  state  of  primitive  rudeness,  or  before  fitrht  distributi 
moved  on  the  face  of  the  waters,  waited  ht'ull  effect  and  est 
of  the  parts  of  matter,  to  develope  int(?is.     The  thiiio-  wanted 
blishment  of  animal  and  vegetable  kir 


24  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER. 

for  the  evolution  of  this  chaos  into  an  orderly  and  beneficial  sys- 
tem is  not  the  endowing  of  matter  with  right  properties  ;  but  the 
forming  of  it  into  things  of  right  shape  and  magnitude,  and  the 
marshalling  of  these  into  right  places.  This  last  alone  would 
suffice  for  bringing  harmony  out  of  confusion  ;  and,  apart  alto- 
gether from  the  first,  or,  without  involving  ourselves  in  the 
metaphysical  obscurity  of  those  questions  which  relate  to  the 
origination  of  matter  and  to  the  distinction  between  its  arbitrary 
and  essential  properties,  might  we  discern,  in  the  mere  arrange- 
ments of  matter,  the  most  obvious  and  decisive  signatures  of  the 
artist  hand  which  has  been  employed  on  it. 

13.   That  is  a  fine  generalization  by  the  late  Professor  R obi- 
son,  of  Edinburgh,  which  ranges  all  philosophy  into  two  sciences 
— one  the  science  of  contemporaneous  nature ;  the  other,  the 
science  of  successive  nature.     When  the  material  world  is  view- 
ed according  to  this  distinction,  the  whole  science  of  its  contem- 
poraneous phenomena  is  comprehended  by  him  under  the  gener- 
al name  of  Natural  History,  which  takes  cognizance  of  all  those 
characters  in  external  nature  that  exist  together  at  the  instant, 
and  which  may  be  described  without  reference  to  time — as  smell, 
and  colour,  and  size,  and  weight,  and  form,  and  relation  of  parts, 
whether  of  the  simple  inorganic  or  more  complex  organic  struc- 
tures.    But  when  the  elements  of  time  and  motion  are  introduc- 
ed, we  are  then  presented  with  the  phenomena  of  successive  na- 
ture ;  and  the  science  that  embraces  these  is,  in  contradistinction 
to  the  former,  termed  Natural  Philosophy.     This  latter  science 
may  be  separated  or  subdivided  further  into  natural  philosophy, 
strictly  and  indeed  usually  so  called,  whose  province  it  is  to  in- 
vestigate those  changes  which  take  effect  in  bodies  by  motions 
that  are  sensible  and  measurable  ;  and  chemistry,  or  the  science 
of  those  changes  which  take  effect  in  bodies  by  motions  which 
are  not  sensible  or,  at  least,  not  measurable,  and  which  cannot 
therefore  be  made  the  subjects  of  mathematical  computation  or 
reasoning.     This  last,  again,  is  capable  of  being  still  further  par- 
titioned into  the  science  which  investigates  the  changes  effected 
by  means  of  insensible  motion  in  all  inorganic  matter,  or  chemis- 
'^■'^  strictly  and  usually  so  called  ;  and  the  science  of  physiology, 
^^.  ^  e  province  it  is  to  investigate  the  like  changes  that   take 

P  ^       organic  bodies,  whether  of  the  animal  or  vegetable  king- 
doms.     &  '  &  to 

*       g  ^^distinction  between  these  two  sciences  of  contem- 

TV»    one  or  nit'ccessive  nature  may  otherwise  be  stated  thus. 

r  natural  phil  history,  is  conversant  with  objects — the  oth- 

'     ^,.oonf  with  evxhy  in  its  most  comprehensive  meaning,  is 
conversani  wiui«-vvj  K.      ^v.    j-        -,■  c 

It  IS  obvious  that  the  dispositions  ot 


INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER.  25 

matter  come  within  the  province  of  the  former  science — while  the 
laws  of  matter,  or  the  various  moving  forces  by  which  it  is  actu- 
ated, fall  more  properly  under  the  enquiries  of  the  latter  science. 
Now,  adopting  this  nomenclature,  we  hold  it  a  most  important 
assertion  for  the  cause  of  natural  theology,  that  should  all  the 
present  arrangements  of  our  existing  natural  history  be  destroy- 
ed, there  is  no  power  in  the  laws  of  our  existing  natural  philoso- 
phy to  replace  them.  Or,  in  other  words,  if  ever  a  time  was, 
when  the  structure  and  dispositions  of  matter,  under  the  present 
economy  of  things  were  not — there  is  no  force  known  in  nature, 
and  no  combination  of  forces  that  can  account  for  their  com- 
mencement. The  laws  of  nature  may  keep  up  the  working  of 
the  machinery — but  they  did  not  and  could  not  set  up  the  ma- 
chine. The  human  species,  for  example,  may  be  upholden, 
through  an  indefinite  series  of  ages,  by  the  established  law  of 
transmission — but  were  the  species  destroyed,  there  are  no  ob- 
served powers  of  nature  by  which  it  could  again  be  originated. 
For  the  continuance  of  the  system  and  of  all  its  operations,  we 
might  imagine  a  sufficiency  in  the  laws  of  nature  ;  but  it  is  the 
first  construction  of  the  system  which  so  palpably  calls  for  the 
intervention  of  an  artificer,  or  demonstrates  so  powerfully  the  fiat 
and  finger  of  a  God. 

15.  This  distinction  between  nature's  laws  and  nature's  collo- 
cations is  mainly  lost  sight  of  in  those  speculations  of  geology, 
the  object  of  which  is  to  explain  the  formation  of  new  systems 
emerging  from  the  wreck  of  old  ones.  They  proceed  on  the 
sufficiency  of  nature's  laws  for  building  up  the  present  economy 
of  things  out  of  the  ruins  of  a  former  economy,  which  the  last 
great  physical  catastrophe  on  the  face  of  our  earth  had  overthrown. 
Now,  in  these  ruins,  viewed  as  materials  for  the  architecture  of 
a  renovated  world,  there  did  reside  all  those  forces,  by  which 
the  processes  of  the  existing  economy  are  upholden;  but  the 
g'3ologists  assign  to  them  a  function  wholly  distinct  from  this, 
when  they  labour  to  demonstrate,  that  by  laws,  and  laws  alone, 
the  frame-work  of  our  existing  economy  was  put  together.  It 
is  thus  that  they  would  exclude  the  agency  of  a  God  from  the 
transition  between  one  system,  or  one  formation,  and  another, 
although  it  be  precisely  at  such  transition  when  this  agency  seems 
most  palpably  and  peculiarly  called  for.  We  feel  assured  that 
the  necessity  for  a  divine  intervention,  and,  of  course,  the  evi- 
dence of  it  would  have  been  more  manifest,  had  the  distinction 
between  the  laws  of  matter  and  its  collocations  been  more 
formally  announced,  or  more  fully  proceeded  on  \jy  ihe  writers 
on  natural  theism.  And  yet  it  is  a  distinction  that  must  have 
been  present  to  the  mind  of  our  great  Newton,  M'ho  cxprcs^l/ 
3 


26  INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER. 

affirms  that  a  mechanism  of  wonderful  structure  could  not  arise 
by  the  mere  laws  of  nature.  In  his  third  printed  letter  to  Bent- 
lev,  he  says,  that  "  the  growth  of  new  systems  out  of  old  ones, 
without  the  mediation  of  a  divine  power,  seems  to  me  apparent- 
ly absurd  ;"  and  that  "  the  system  of  nature  was  set  in  order  in 
the  beginning,  with  respect  to  size,  figure,  proportions,  and  pro- 
perties, by  the  counsels  of  God's  own  intelligence."  In  the 
last  extracts,  by  his  admission  of  the  properties  along  with  the 
dispositions  of  matter,  he  somewhat  confounds  or  disguises  again 
the  important  distinction  which,  at  times,  he  had  clearly  in  his 
view.* 

16.  But  one  precious  fruit  of  the  recent  geological  discoveries 
may  be  gathered  from  the  testimony  v.hich  they  afford  to  the  de- 
struction of  so  many  terrestrial  economies  now  gone  by,  and  the 
substitution  of  the  existing  one  in  their  place.  If  there  be  truth 
at  all  in  the  speculations  of  this  science,  there  is  nothing  which 
appears  to  have  been  more  conclusively  established  by  them,  than 
a  definite  origin  or  commencement  for  the  present  animal  and 
vegetable  races.  Now  we  know  what  it  is  which  upholds  the 
whole  of  the  physiological  system  that  is  now  before  our  eyes, — 
even  the  successive  derivation  of  each  individual  member  from 
a  parent  of  its  own  likeness  ;  but  we  see  no  force  in  nature,  and 
no  complication  of  forces  which  can  tell  us  what  it  was  that  origi- 
nated the  system.  It  is  at  this  passage  in  the  history  of  nature, 
where  we  meet  with  such  pregnant  evidence  for  the  interposition 
of  a  designing  cause, — an  evidence,  it  will  be  seen,  of  prodigious 
density  and  force,  when  we  compute  the  immense  number  and 
variety  of  those  aptitudes,  whether  of  form  or  magnitude  or  rela- 
tive position,  which  enter  into  the  completion  of  an  organic  slruc- 
ture.  It  is  in  the  numerical  superiority  of  the  distinct  collocations 
to  the  distinct  laws  of  matter,  that  the  superior  evidence  of  the 
former  lies.  We  do  not  deny  that  there  is  argument  for  a  God 
in  the  number  of  beneficial,  while,  at  the  same  time,  distinct  and 
independent  laws  wherewith  matter  is  endowed.  We  only  affirm 
a  million-fold  intensity  of  argument  in  the  indefinitely  greater 
number  of  beneficial,  and  at  the  same  time  distinct  and  indepen- 

*  Towards  the  end  of  the  third  book  of  Newton's  Optics,  wc  have  the  following 
very  distinct  testimony  upon  tliis  subject:  "  For  it  became  Him  who  created  them 
to  set  them  in  order.  And  if  he  did  so,  it  is  unpliilosophical  to  seek  for  any  other 
origin  of  the  world,  or  to  pretend  that  it  might  arise  out  of  a  chaos  by  the  mere  laws  of 
nature ;  though  being  once  formed,  it  may  continue  by  those  laws  for  many  ages." 

This  disposition  to  resolve  the  collocations  into  the  laws  of  nature  proves,  in  the 
expressive  language  of  Granville  Penn,  how  strenuously,  not  "  physical  science,  but 
only  some  of  its  disciples  have  laboured  to  exclude  the  Creator  from  the  details  of  his 
own  creation  ;  straining  every  nerve  of  ingenuity  to  ascribe  them  all  to  secondary 
causes,^' 


INTRODUCTOIIY    CJJAPTLR.  27 

dent  number  of  collocations  whereinto  matter  has  been  arranged. 
In  this  resjject  the  human  body  may  be  said  to  present  a  more 
close  and  crowded  and  multifarious  inscription  of  the  divinity, 
than  any  single  object  within  the  compass  of  visible  nature.  It 
is  instinct  throughout  with  the  evidence  of  a  builder's  hand  ;  and 
thus  the  appropriate  men  of  science  who  can  expound  those  dis- 
positions of  matter  which  constitute  fhe  anatomy  of  its  frame- 
work, and  which  embrace  the  ])hysiology  of  its  various  processes, 
are  on  secure  and  firm  vantage  ground  for  an  impressive  demon- 
stration. 

17.  Now  there  are  many  respects  in  which  the  evidence  for  a 
God,  given  Ibrth  by  the  constitution  of  the  liunmn  body,  differs 
from  the  evidence  given  forth  by  the  constitution  of  the  human 
spirit.  It  is  with  the  latter  evidence  that  we  have  more  peculiar- 
larly  to  deal  ;  but  at  present  we  shall  only  advert  to  a  few  of  its 
distinct  and  special  characteristics.  The  subject  will  at  length 
open  into  greater  detail,  and  developement  before  us, — yet  a 
brief  preliminary  exposition  may  be  useful  at  the  outset,  should 
it  only  convey  some  notion  of  the  difficulties  and  particularities 
of  the  task  which  has  been  put  into  our  hands. 

18.  A  leadinjr  distinction  between  the  material  and  the  mental 
fabrications  is,  the  far  greater  complexity  of  the  former,  at  least 
greater  to  all  human  observation.  Into  that  system  of  means 
which  has  been  formed  for  the  object  of  seeing,  there  enter  at 
least  twenty  separate  contingencies,  the  absence  of  any  one  of 
which  would  either  derange  the  proper  function  of  the  eye,  or 
altogether  destroy  it.  We  have  no  access  to  aught  like  the  ob- 
servation of  a  mental  structure,  and  all  of  which  our  conscious- 
ness informs  us  is  a  succession  of  mental  phenomena.  Now  in 
these  we  are  sensible  of  nothing  but  a  very  simple  antecedent 
follov.ed  up,  and  that  generally  on  the  instant,  by  a  like  simple 
consequent.  We  have  the  feeling  and  still  more  the  purpose 
of  benevolence,  followed  up  by  complacency.  "VVe  have  the  feel- 
ing or  purpose,  and  still  more  the  execution  of  malignity,  or  rather 
the  recollection  of  that  execution,  followed  up  by  remorse.  How- 
ever manifold  the  apparatus  may  be  which  enables  us  to  see  an 
external  object, — when  the  sight  itself,  instead  of  the  consequ«?nt 
in  a  material  succession,  becomes  the  antecedent  in  a  mental 
one  ;  or,  in  other  words,  when  it  passes  from  a  material  to  a 
purely  mental  process  ;  then,  as  soon,  does  it  pass  from  the 
complex  into  the  simple  ;  and,  accordingly,  the  sight  of  distress 
is  followed  up,  without  the  intervention  of  any  curiously  elabo- 
rated mechanism  that  we  are  at  all  conscious  of,  by  an  immedi- 
diate  feeling  of  compassion.  These  examples  will,  at  least, 
suffice  to  mark  a  strong  distinction  between  the  two  enquiries, 


28  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER. 

and  to  show  that  the  several  arguments  drawn  from  each  must 
at  least  be  formed  of  very  different  materials. 

19.  There  are  two  distinct  ways  in  which  the  mind  can  be 
viewed,  and  which  constitute  different  modes  of  conception, 
rather  than  diversities  of  substantial  and  scientific  doctrine. 
The  mind  may  either  be  regarded  as  a  congeries  of  different 
faculties  ;  or  as  a  simple  and  indivisible  substance,  with  the 
susceptibility  of  passing  into  different  states.  By  the  former 
mode  of  viewing  it,  the  memory,  and  the  judgment,  and  the  con- 
science, and  the  will,  are  conceived  of  as  so  many  distinct  but 
co-existent  parts  of  mind,  wliich  is  thus  represented  to  us  some- 
what in  the  light  of  an  organic  structure,  having  separate  mem- 
bers, each  for  the  discharge  of  its  own  appropriate  mental  func- 
tion or  exercise.  By  the  latter,  which  we  deem  also  the  more 
felicitous  mode  of  viewing  it,  these  distinct  mental  acts,  in.stead 
of  being  referred  to  distinct  parts  of  the  mind,  are  conceived  of 
as  distinct  acts  of  the  whole  mind, — insomuch  that  the  whole 
mind  remembers,  or  the  whole  mind  judges,  or  the  whole  mind 
wills,  or,  in  short,  the  whole  mind  passes  into  various  intellect- 
ual states  or  states  of  emotion,  according  to  the  circumstances 
by  which  at  the  time  it  is  beset,  or  to  the  present  nature  of  its 
employment.  We  might  thus  either  regard  the  study  of  mind  as 
a  study  in  contemporaneous  nature  ;  and  we  should  then,  in  the 
delineation  of  its  various  parts,  be  assigning  to  it  a  natural  his- 
tory,— or  we  might  regard  the  study  of  mind  as  a  study  in  suc- 
cessive nature  ;  and  we  should  then,  in  the  description  of  its 
various  states,  be  assigning  to  it  a  natural  philosophy.  When 
such  a  phrase  as  the  anatomy  of  the  human  mind  is  employed 
by  philosophers,  we  may  safely  guess  that  the  former  is  the 
conception  which  they  are  inclined  to  form  of  it.*  When 
such  a  phrase  again  as  the  physiology  of  the  human  mind 
is  made  use  of,  the  latter  is  the  conception  by  which,  in  all  pro- 
babihty,  it  has  been  suggested.  It  is  thus  that  Dr.  Thomas 
Brown  designates  the  science  of  mind  as  mental  physiology. 
With  him,  in  fact,  it  is  altogether  a  science  of  sequences,  his 
very  analysis  being  the  analysis  of  results,  and  not  of  com- 
pounds. 

20.  Now,  in  either  view  of  our  mental  constitution  there  is  the 
same  strength  of  evidence  for  a  God.  It  matters  not  for  this, 
whether  the  mind  be  regarded  as  consisting  of  so  many  useful 
parts,  or  as  endowed  with  as  many  useful  properties.  It  is  the 
number,  whether  the  one  or  other,  of  these — out  of  which  the 
product  is  formed  of  evidence  for  a  designing  cause.     The  only 

*  It  is  under  this  conception  too  that  writers  propose  to  lay  down  a  map  of  the 
liutnan  faculties. 


INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER.  29 

reason  why  the  uscliil  dispositions  of  matter  are  so  greatly  more 
prohfic  of  this  evidence  than  the  useful  laws  of  matter,  is,  that 
the  former  so  greatly  outnumber  the  latter.  Of  the  twenty  in- 
dependent circumstances  which  enter  into  beneficial  concurrence 
in  the  formation  of  an  eye,  that  each  of  tliem  should  be  found  in 
a  situation  of  optimism,  and  none  of  them  oc(;i:pying  either  an 
indifferent  or  a  hurtful  position — it  is  this  which  speaks  so  em- 
j)hatically  agahist  the  hypotiiesis  of  a  random  distribution,  and 
for  the  hypothesis  of  an  intcliigent  order.  Yet  this  is  but  one 
out  of  the  many  like  specimens,  ^^  herewith  the  animal  economy 
thickens  and  teems  in  such  marvellous  profusion.  By  the  doc- 
trine of  probabilities,  the  mathematical  evidence,  in  this  question 
between  the  two  suppositions  of  intelligence  or  chance,  will  be 
found,  even  on  many  a  single  organ  of  the  human  frame-work, 
to  preponderate  vastly  more  than  a  million-fold  on  the  side  of 
the  former.  We  do  not  atiinn  of  the  human  mind  that  it  is  so 
destitute  of  all  complication  and  variety,  as  to  be  deficient  alto- 
gether in  this  sort  of  evidence.  Let  there  be  but  six  laws  or 
ultimate  facts  in  the  mental  constitution,  with  the  circumstance 
of  each  of  them  being  beneficial  ;  and  this  of  itself  would  yield 
no  inconsiderable  amoimt  of  precise  and  calculable  proof,  for 
our  mental  economy  being  a  formation  of  contrivance,  rather 
than  one  that  is  fortuitous  or  of  blind  necessity.  It  will  at  once 
be  seen,  however,  why  mind,  just  from  its  greater  simplicity  than 
matter,  should  contribute  so  much  less  to  the  support  of  natural 
theism,  of  that  definite  and  mathematical  evidence  which  is 
founded  on  combination. 

21.  But,  although  in  the  mental  department  of  crcatiou.  the  argu- 
ment for  a  God  that  is  gathered  out  of  such  materials,  is  not  so 
strong  as  in  the  other  great  department — yet  it  does  furnish  a  i)ecu- 
liar  argument  of  its  own,  which,  though  not  grounded  on  mathe- 
matical data,  and  not  derived  from  a  lengthened  and  logical 
j)rocess  of  reasoning,  is  of  a  highly  cifectivc  and  practical  cha- 
racter notwithstanding.  It  has  not  less  in  it  of  the  substance, 
though  it  may  have  greatly  less  in  it  of  the  semblance  of  demon- 
stration, that  it  consists  of  but  one  step  between  the  premises 
and  the  conclusion.  It  is  briefly,  but  cannot  be  more  clearly 
and  emphatically  expressed  than  in  the  following  sentence. — 
'*  He  that  formed  the  eye,  shall  he  not  see  ?  He  that  planted 
the  ear,  shall  he  not  hear?  He  that  teacheth  man  know- 
ledge, shall  ho  not  know  ?"  That  the  parent  cause  of  intelligent 
beings  shall  be  itself  intelligent  is  an  aphorisin,  which,  if  not  de- 
monstrable in  the  forms  of  logic,  carries  in  the  very  announce- 
ment of  it  a  challenging  power  over  the  acquiescence  of  all 
spirits.  It  is  a  thing  of  instant  conviction,  as  if  seen  in  the  light 
3* 


30  INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER. 

of  its  own  evidence,  more  than  a  thing  of  lengthened  and  labo- 
rious proof.     It  may  be  stigmatized  as  a  mere  impression — 
nevertheless  the  most  of  intellects  go  as  readily  along  with  it,  as 
they  would  from  one  contiguous  step  to  another  of  many  a  stately 
argumentation.     If  it  cannot  be  exhibited  as  the  conclusion  of  a 
syllogism,  it  is  because  of  its  own  inherent  right  to  be  admitted 
there  as  the  major  proposition.     To  proscribe  every  such  truth, 
or  to  disown  it  from  being  truth,  merely  because  incapable  of 
deduction,   would    be  to  cast  away  the  first  principles   of  all 
reasoning.     It  would  banish  the  authority  of  intuition,  and  so 
reduce  all  philosophy  and  knowledge  to  a  state   of  universal 
scepticism — for  what  is  the  first  departure  of  every  argument 
but  an  intuition,  and  what  but  a  series  of  intuitions  are  its  suc- 
cessive stepping-stones?     We  should  soon  involve  ourselves  m 
helpless  perplexity  and  darkness,  did  we  insist  on  every  thing 
being  proved  and  on  nothing  being  assumed — for  valid  assump- 
tions are  the  materials  of  truth,  and  the  only  office  of  argument 
is  to  weave  them  together  into  so  many  pieces  of  instruction  for 
the  bettering  or  enlightening  of  the  species. 

22.  That  blind  and  unconscious  matter  cannot,  by  any  of  her 
combinations,  evolve  the  phenomena  of  mind,  is  a  proposition 
seen  in  its  own  immediate  light,  and  felt  to  be  true  with  all  the 
speed  and  certainty  of  an  axiom.  It  is  to  such  truth,  as  being  of 
instant  and  almost  universal  consent,  that,  more  than  to  any 
other,  we  owe  the  existence  of  a  natural  theology  among  men  : 
yet,  because  of  the  occult  mysticism  wherewith  it  is  charged,  it 
is  well  that  ours  is  a  case  of  such  rich  and  various  argument ; 
that  in  her  service  we  can  build  up  syllogisms,  and  expatiate 
over  wide  fields  of  induction,  and  amass  stores  of  evidence,  and, 
on  the  useful  dispositions  of  matter  alone,  can  ground  such 
large  computations  of  probability  in  favour  of  an  intelligent 
cause  or  maker  for  all  things,  as  might  silence  and  satisfy  the 
reasoners. 

23.  But  we  forget  that  the  object  of  the  joint  compositions 
■which  enter  into  this  work,  is  not  properly  to  demonstrate  the 
being  but  the  attributes  of  God,  and  more  especially  His  power, 
and  wisdom,  and  goodness.  We  start  from  that  point  at  which 
the  intuitions  and  proofs  of  the  question  have  performed  their 
end  of  convincing  man  that  God  is  ;  and  from  this  point,  wc 
set  forth  on  an  enquiry  into  the  character  which  belongs  to  him. 
Now  this  is  an  enquiry  which  the  constitution  of  the  mind,  and 
the  adaptation  of  that  constitution  to  the  external  world,  are 
pre-eminently  fitted  to  illustrate.  Wc  hold  that  the  material 
universe  affords  decisive  attestation  to  the  natural  perfections 
of  the  Godhead,  but  that  it  leaves  the  question  of  his  moral  per- 


INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER.  31 

fections  involved  in  profoundest  mystery.  The  machinery  of  a 
serpent's  tooth,  for  the  obvious  infliction  of  pain  and  death  upon 
its  victims,  may  speak  as  distinctly  for  the  power  and  intel- 
ligence of  its  Maker  as  the  machinery  of  those  teeth  which, 
formed  and  inserted  for  simple  mastication,  subserve  the  pur- 
poses of  a  bland  and  beneficent  economy.  An  apparatus  of 
suffering  and  torture  might  furnish  as  clear  an  indication  of  de- 
sign, though  a  design  of  cruelty,  as  does  an  apparatus  for  the 
ministration  of  enjoyment  furnish  the  indication  also  of  design, 
but  a  design  of  benevolence.  Did  M^e  confine  our  study  to  the 
material  constitution  of  things,  we  should  meet  with  the  enigma 
of  many  perplexing  and  contradictory  appearances.  We  hope 
to  m.ake  it  manifest,  that  in  the  study  of  the  mental  constitution, 
this  enigma  is  greatly  alleviated,  if  not  wholly  done  away  ;  and, 
at  all  events,  that  within  our  peculiar  province  there  lie  the  most 
full  and  unambiguous  demonstrations,  which  nature  hath  any 
where  given  to  us,  both  of  the  benevolence  and  the  righteous- 
ness of  God. 

2i.  If,  in  some  respects,  the  phenomena  of  mind  tell  us  less 
decisively  than  the  phenomena  of  matter,  of  the  existence  of  God, 
tbcy  tell  us  far  more  distinctly  and  decisively  of  His  attributes. 
We  have  already  said  that,  from  the  simplicity  of  the  mental  sys- 
tem, we  met  with  less  there  of  that  evidence  for  design  which  is 
founded  on  combination,  or  on  that  right  adjustment  and  adapta- 
tion of  the  numerous  particulars,  which  enter  into  a  complex 
assemblage  of  thin^rs,  and  which  are  essential  to  some  desirable 
fulfilment.  It  is  not,  therefore,  through  the  medium  of  this  par- 
ticular evidence — the  evidence  a\  hich  lies  in  combination  ;  that 
the  phenomena  and  processes  of  mind  are  the  best  for  telling 
us  of  the  Divine  existence.  But  if  otherwise,  or  previously  told 
of  this,  v/e  hold  them  to  be  the  best  throughout  all  nature  for 
teHinir  us  of  the  Divine  character.  For  if  once  convinced,  on 
di  tinct  gromids,  that  God  is,  it  matters  not  how  simple  the 
antecedents  or  the  consequents  of  any  particular  succession 
may  be.  It  is  enough  that  we  know  what  the  terms  of  the  suc- 
cession are,  or  what  the  effect  is  wherewith  God  wills  any  given 
thing  to  be  followed  up.  The  character  of  the  ordination,  and 
so  the  character  of  the  ordainer,  depends  on  the  terms  of  the 
succession  ;  and  not  on  the  nature  of  that  intervention  or  agency, 
whether  more  or  less  complex,  by  which  it  is  brought  about. 
And  should  either  term  of  the  succession,  either  the  antecedent 
or  consequent,  be  some  moral  feeling,  or  characteristic  of  the 
mind,  then  the  inference  comes  to  be  a  very  distinct  and  decisive 
one.  That  the  sight  of  distress,  for  example,  should  be  follow- 
ed up  by  compassion,  is  an  obvious  provision  of  benevolence, 


32  INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER. 

and  not  of  cruelty,  on  the  part  of  Him  who  ordained  our  mental 
constitution.     Again,  that  a  feeling   of  kindness  in  the  heart 
should  be  followed  up  by  a  feeling  of  complacency  in  the  heart, 
that  in  every  virtuous   affection  of  the  soul  there  should  be  so 
much  to  gladden  and  harmonize  it,   that  there  should  always  be 
peace  within  when  there  is  conscious  purity  or  rectitude  within  ; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  that  malignity  and  licentiousness,  and 
the   sense  of  any  moral  transgression  whatever,  should  always 
have  the  effect  of  discomforting,  and  sometimes  even  of  agoniz- 
ing the  spirit  of  man — that  such  should  be  the  actual  workman- 
ship and  working  of  our  nature,  speaks  most  distinctly,  we  ap- 
prehend, for  the  general  righteousness  of  Him  who  constructed 
its  machinery  and  established  its  laws.     An  omnipotent  patron 
of  vice  would  have  given  another  make,  and  a  moral  system  w  ith 
other  and   opposite  tendencies  to  the   creatures  whom  he  had 
Ibrmed.     He  would  have  established  different  sequences  ;   and, 
instead  of  that  oil  of  gladness  which  now   distils,   t^s  if  from   a 
secret  spring  of  satisfaction,  upon  the  upright ;  and,  instead  of 
that   bitterness    and    disquietude  which   are   now   the    obvious 
attendants  on  every  species  of  delinquency,  we  should  have  had 
the  reverse  phenomena  of  a  reversely  constituted  species,  whose 
minds  were  in  their  state  of  wildest  disorder  when  kindling  with 
the  resolves  of  highest  excellence  ;    or  Avere  in  their  best  and 
liappiest,  and  most  harmonious  mood,   v.dien  brooding  over  the 
purposes  of  dishonesty,  or  frenzied  Avith  the  passions  of  hatred 
and  revenge. 

2-5.  In  this  special  track  of  observation,  we  have  at  least  the 
means  or  data  for  constructing  a  tUr  more  satisfactory  denion- 
stration  of  the  divine  attributes,  than  can  possibly  be  gathered, 
we  think,  from  the  ambiguous  phenomena  of  the  external  world, 
f  n  other  words,  it  will  be  found  that  the  mental  phenomena  speak 
more  distinctly  and  decisively  for  the  character  of  God  than  do 
the  material  phenomena  of  creation.     And  it  should  not  be  for- 
gotten that  whatever  serves  to  indicate  the  character,  serves  also 
to  confirm  the  existence  of  the  Divine  Being.     For  this  charac- 
ter, whose  signatures  are  impressed  on  Nature,  is  not  an  abstrac- 
tion,  but  must  have  residence  on  a  concrete  and  substantive 
Being,  who  hath  connnunicated  a  transcript  of  Himself  to  the 
workmanshij)  of  His  oanu  hands.     It  is  thus,  that,  although  in 
our  assigned  deparfmont  there  is  greater  poverty  of  evidence  for 
a  God,  in  as  far  as  that  evidence  is  grounded  on  a  skilful  dispo- 
sition of  parts, — yet,  in  respect  of  another  kind  of  evidence,  there 
is  no  such  poverty  ;  for,  greatly  more  replete  as  we  hold  our  spe- 
cial department  to  be  with  the  unequivocal  tokens  of  a  moral 
ciiaracter,  we,  by  that  simole  but  strong  ligament  of  proof  which 


INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER.  33 

connects  a  character  with  an  existence,  can,  in  the  study  of  mind 
alone,  find  a  firm  stepping-stone  to  the  existence  of  a  God.  Our 
universe  is  sometimes  termed  the  mirror  of  Him  who  made  it. 
But  the  optical  reflection,  whatever  it  may  be,  must  be  held  as 
indicating  the  reality  which  gave  it  birth  ;  and,  whether  we  dis- 
cern there  the  expression  of  a  reigning  benevolence,  or  a  reign- 
ing jiistice,  these  must  not  be  dealt  with  as  the  aerial  or  the  fan- 
ciful personifications  of  qualities  alone,  but  as  the  substantial 
evidences  of  a  just  and  benevolent,  and,  withal,  a  living  God. 

26.  But,  in  the  prosecution  of  our  assigned  task,  we  shall, 
after  all,  meet  with  much  of  that  evidence,  which  lies  in  the 
manifold,  and,  withal,  happy  conjunction  of  many  individual 
things,  by  the  meeting  together  of  which,  some  distinctly  bene- 
ficial end  is  accomplished,  brought  about  in  that  one  way  and  in 
no  other.  For  it  ought  further  to  be  recollected,  that,  simple  as 
the  constitution  of  the  human  mind  is,  and  proportionally  unfruit- 
ful, therefore,  as  it  may  be  of  that  arg'ament  for  a  God,  which  is 
founded  on  the  right  assortment  and  disposition  of  many  parts, 
or  even  of  many  principles  ;  yet,  on  studying  the  precise  terms 
of  the  commission  v.hich  has  been  put  into  our  hands,  it  will  be 
found  that  the  materials  even  of  this  peculiar  argument  lie  abun- 
dantly within  our  province.  For  it  is  not  strictly  the  mental 
constitution  of  man  which  forms  the  subject  of  our  prescribed 
essay,  but  the  adaptation  to  that  constitution  of  external  nature. 
^Ve  have  to  demonstrate,  not  so  much  that  the  mind  is  rightly 
constituted  in  itself,  as  that  the  mind  is  rightly  placed  in  a  befit- 
ting theatre  for  the  exercise  of  its  pov/ers.  It  is  to  demonstrate 
that  the  world  and  its  various  objects  are  suited  to  the  various 
capacities  of  this  inhabitant — -this  moral  and  intelligent  creature, 
of  whom  we  have  to  prove  that  the  things  w  hich  are  around  him 
bear  a  fit  relation  to  the  laws  or  the  properties  which  are  within 
him.  There  is  ample  room  here  for  the  evidence  of  colloca- 
tion. Yet  there  remains  this  distinction  between  the  mental  and 
the  corporeal  economy  of  man,  that  whereas  the  evidence  is 
more  rich  and  manifold  in  the  bodily  structure  itself,  than  even 
in  its  complex  and  numerous  adaptations  to  the  outer  world  ;* 
the  like  evidence,  in  our  peculiar  department,  is  meagre,  as 
afforded  by  the  subjective  mind,  when  compared  with  the  evi- 
dence of  its  various  adjustments  and  fitnesses  to  the  objective 
universe  around  it,  whether  of  man's  moral  constitution  to  the 
state  of  human  society,  or  of  his  intellectual  to  the  various  ob- 
jects of  physical  investigation. 

*  Yet  Paley  lias  a  most  interesting  chapter  on  the  adaptations  of  external  nature  to 
the  human  frame-work,  though  the  main  strength  and  copiousness  of  his  argument  lies 
in  the  anatomy  of  the  frame-work  itself. 


34  INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER. 

27.  The  great  object  of  philosophy  is  to  ascertain  the  simple 
or  ultimate  principles,  into  which  all  the  phenomena  of  nature 
may  by  analysis  be  resolved.  But  it  often  happens  that  in  this 
attempt  she  stops  short  at  a  secondary  law,  which  might  be  de- 
monstrated by  further  analysis  to  be  itself  a  complex  derivative 
of  the  primitive  or  elementary  laws.  Until  this  work  of  analy- 
sis be  completed,  we  shall  often  mistake  what  is  compound  for 
what  is  simple,  both  in  the  i)hilosophy  of  mind  and  the  philo- 
sophy of  matter — being  frequently  exposed  to  intractable  sub- 
stances or  intractable  phenomena  in  both,  which  long  Avithstand 
every  effort  that  science  makes  for  their  decomposition.  It  is 
thus  that  the  time  is  not  yet  come,  and  may  never  come,  when 
we  shall  fully  understand,  what  be  all  the  simple  elements  or 
simple  laws  of  matter  ;  and  what  be  all  the  distinct  elementary 
laws,  or,  as  they  have  sometimes  been  termed,  the  ultimate  facts 
in  the  constitution  of  the  human  mind.  But  we  do  not  need  to 
wait  for  this  communication,  ere  we  can  trace,  in  either  depart- 
ment, the  wisdom  and  beneiicence  of  a  Deity — tor  many  are 
both  the  material  and  the  mental  processes  which  might  be  re- 
cognized as  pregnant  with  utility,  and  so,  pregnant  with  evidence 
for  a  God,  long  before  the  processes  themselves  are  analyzed. 
The  truth  is,  that  a  secondary  law,  if  it  do  not  exhibit  any  addi- 
tional proof  of  design,  in  a  distinct  useful  principle,  exhibits  that 
proof  in  a  distinct  and  useful  disposition  of  parts — for,  generally 
speaking,  a  secondary  law  is  the  result  of  an  operation  by  some 
primitive  law,  in  peculiar  and  new  circumstances.  For  exam- 
ple, the  law  of  the  tides  is  a  secondary  law,  resolvable  into  one 
more  general  and  elementary — even  the  law  of  gravitation.  But 
we  might  imagine  a  state  of  things,  in  which  the  discovery  of 
this  connection  would  have  been  impossible, — as  a  sky  perpetu- 
ally mantled  with  a  cloudy  evelopement,  which,  while  it  did  not 
intercept  the  light  either  of  the  sun  or  moon,  still  hid  these  bodies 
from  our  direct  observation.  In  these  circumstances,  the  law 
of  the  tides  and  the  law  of  gravitation,  though  identical  in  them- 
selves, could  not  have  been  identified  by  us  ;  and  so,  we  might 
have  ascribed  this  wholesome  agitation  of  the  sea  and  of  the 
atmosphere  to  a  distinct  power  or  principle  in  nature — affording 
the  distinct  indication  of  both  a  kind  and  intelligent  Creator. 
Now  this  inference  is  not  annihilated — it  is  not  even  enfeebled 
by  the  discovery  in  question ;  for  although  the  good  arising  from 
tides  in  the  ocean  and  tides  in  the  air,  is  not  referable  to  a  pecu- 
liar law — it  is  at  least  referable  to  a  pecuHar  collocation.  And 
this  holds  of  all  the  useful  secondary  laws  in  the  material  world. 
If  they  cannot  be  alleged  in  evidence  for  the  number  of  benefi- 
cial princioles  in  nature — they  can  at  least  be  alleged  in  evidence 


INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER.  35 

for  the  number  of  nature's  beneficial  arrangements.  If  they  do 
not  attest  the  multitude  of  useful  properties,  they  at  the  least 
attest  the  multitude  of  useful  parts  in  nature  ;  and  the  skill, 
guided  by  benevolence  which  has  been  put  forth  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  them.  So  that  long  ere  the  philosophy  of  matter  is  per- 
fected, or  all  its  phenomena  and  its  secondary  laws  have  been 
resolved  into  their  original  and  constituent  principles — may  we, 
in  their  obvious  and  immediate  utility  alone,  detect  as  many 
separate  evidences  in  nature  as  there  are  separate  facts  in  nature, 
for  a  wise  and  benevolent  Deity. 

2S.  And  the  same  will  be  found  true  of  the  secondary  laws  in 
the  mental  world,  which,  if  not  as  many  distinct  beneficial  prin- 
ciples in  the  constitution  of  the  mind,  are  the  effect  of  as  many 
distinct  and  beneficial  arrangements  in  the  objects  or  circum- 
stances by  which  it  is  surrounded.  We  have  not  to  wait  the 
completion  of  its  still  more  subtle  and  difficult  analysis,  ere  we 
come  within  sight  of  those  varied  indications  of  benevolent  de- 
sign which  are  so  abundantly  to  be  met  with,  both  in  the  consti- 
tution of  the  mind  itselt^,  and  in  the  adaptation  thereto  of  external 
nature.  Some  there  are,  for  example,  who  contend  that  the  laws 
of  taste  are  not  primitive  but  secondary  ;  that  our  admiration  of 
beauty  in  material  objects  is  resolvable  into  other  and  original 
emotions,  and,  more  especially,  by  means  of  the  associafing  prin- 
ciple, into  our  admiration  of  moral  excellence.  Let  the  justness 
of  this  doctrine  be  admitted  ;  and  its  only  effect  on  our  peculiar 
argument  is,  that  the  benevolence  of  God  in  thus  multiplying  our 
enjoyments,  instead  of  being  indicated  by  a  distinct  law  for  suit- 
ing the  human  mind  to  the  objects  which  surround  it,  is  indicat- 
ed both  by  the  distribution  of  these  objects  and  by  their  invest- 
ment with  such  qualities  as  suit  them  to  the  previous  constitution 
of  the  mind — that  he  hath  pencilled  them  with  the  very  colours, 
or  moulded  them  into  the  very  shapes  which  suggest  either  the 
graceful  or  the  noble  of  human  character  ;  that  he  hath  imparted 
to  the  violet  its  hue  of  modesty,  and  clothed  the  lily  in  its  robe  of 
purest  innocence,  and  given  to  the  trees  of  the  forest  their  respec- 
tive attitudes  of  strength  or  delicacy,  and  made  the  whole  face  of 
nature  one  bright  reflection  of  those  virtues  which  the  mind  and 
character  of  man  had  originally  radiated.  If  it  be  not  by  the  im- 
plantation of  a  peculiar  law  in  mind,  it  is  at  least  by  a  peculiar 
disposition  of  tints  and  forms  in  external  nature,  that  he  hath 
spread  so  diversified  a  loveliness  over  the  panorama  of  visible 
things  ;  and  thrown  so  many  walks  of  enchantment  around  us  ; 
and  turned  the  sights  and  the  sounds  of  rural  scenery  into  the 
ministers  of  so  much  and  such  exquisite  enjoyment ;  and  caused 
the  outer  world  of  matter  to  image  forth  in  such  profusion  those 


36  INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER. 

various  qualities,  which  at  first  had  pleased  or  powerfully  affected 
us  in  the  inner  world  of  consciousness  and  thought.  It  is  by  the 
modifying  operation  of  circumstances  that  a  primary  is  transmut- 
ed into  a  secondary  law  ;  and  if  the  blessings  which  we  enjoy 
under  it  cannot  be  ascribed  to  the  insertion  of  a  distinct  principle 
in  the  nature  of  man,  they  can  at  least  be  ascribed  to  a  useful 
disposition  of  circumstances  in  the  theatre  around  him. 

29.  It  is  thus  that  philosophical  discovery,  which  is  felt  by 
many  to  enfeeble  the  argument  for  a  God,  when  it  reduces  two 
or  more  subordinate  to  simpler  and  anterior  laws,  does  in  fact 
leave  that  argument  as  entire  as  before — for  if,  by  analysis,  it 
diminish  the  number  of  beneficial  properties  in  matter,  it  re- 
places the  injury  which  it  may  be  supposed  to  have  done  in  this 
way  to  the  cause  of  theism,  by  presenting  us  with  as  great  an 
additional   number  of  beneficial  arrangements  in  nature.     And 
further,  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  observe,  that  there  appear 
to  be  two  distinct  ways  by  which  an  artificer  might  make  mani- 
fest the  wisdom  of  his  contrivances.    He  may  either  be  conceiv- 
ed of,  as  forming  a  substance  and  endowing  it  with  the  fit  proper- 
ties ;   or  as  finding  a  substance  with  certain  given  properties,  and 
arranging  it  into  fit  dispositions  for  the  accomplishment  of  some 
desirable  end.  Both  the  former  and  the  latter  of  these  we  ascribe 
to  the  divine  artificer — of  whom  we  imagine,  that  He  is  the  Crea- 
tor as  well  as  the  Disposer  of  all  things.     It  is  only  the  latter 
that  we  can  ascribe  to  the  human  artificer,  who  creates  no  sub- 
stance, and  ordains  no  property ;  but  finds  the  substance  with  all 
its  properties  ready  made  and  put  into  his  hands,  as  the  raw  ma- 
terial out  of  which  he  fashions  his  implements  and  rears  his  struc- 
tures of  various  design  and  workmanship.    Now  it  is  a  common- 
ly received,  and  has  indeed  been  raised  into  a  sort  of  universal 
maxim,  that  the  highest  property  of  wisdom  is  to  achieve  the  most 
desirable  end,  or  the  greatest  amount  of  good,  by  the  fewest  pos- 
sible  means,  or   by  the  simplest  machinery.     When  this  test  is 
applied  to  the  laws  of  nature — then  we  esteem  it,  as  enhancing 
the  manifestation  of  intelligence,  that  one  single  law,  as  gravita- 
tion, should,  as  from  a  central  and  commanding  eminence,  sub- 
ordinate to  itself  a  whole  host  of  most  important  phenomena  ;  or 
that  from  one  great  and  parent  property,  so  vast  a  family  of  ben- 
eficial consequences  should  spring.     And  when  the  same  test  is 
applied  to  the  dispositions,whether  nature  or  art — then  it  enhances 
the   manifestation  of  wisdom,  when  some  great  end  is  brought 
about  with  a  less  complex  or  cumbersome  instrumentahty,  as  of- 
ten takes  place  in  the  simplification  of  machines,  when,  by  the 
device  of  some  ingenious  ligament  or  wheel,  the  apparatus  is 
made  equally,  perhaps  more  effective,  whilst  less  unwieldy  or 


INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER.  37 

less  intricate  than  before.  Yet  there  is  one  way  in  which,  along 
with  an  exceeding  complication  in  the  mechanism,  there  might  be 
given  the  impression,  of  the  very  highest  skill  and  capacity  hav- 
ing been  put  forth  on  the  contrivance  of  it.  It  is  when,  by  means 
of  a  very  operose  and  complex  instrumentality,  the  triumph  of 
art  has  been  made  all  the  more  conspicuous,  by  a  very  marvel- 
lous result  having  been  obtained  out  of  very  unpromising  mate- 
rials. It  is  true,  that,  in  this  case  too,  a  still  higher  impression 
of  skill  would  be  given,  if  the  same  or  a  more  striking  result  were 
arrived  at,  even  after  the  intricacy  of  the  machine  had  been  re- 
duced, by  some  happy  device,  in  virtue  of  which,  certain  of  its 
parts  or  circumvolutions  had  been  superseded  ;  and  thus,  without 
injury  to  the  final  effect,  so  much  of  the  complication  had  been 
dispensed  with.  Still,  however,  the  substance,  whether  of  the 
machine  or  the  manufacture,  may  be  conceived  so  very  intract- 
able as  to  put  an  absolute  limit  on  any  further  simplification,  or 
as  to  create  an  absolute  necessity  for  all  the  manifold  contrivance 
which  had  been  expended  on  it.  When  this  idea  predominates 
in  the  mind — then  all  the  complexity  which  we  may  behold  does 
not  reduce  our  admiration  of  the  artist,  but  rather  deepens  the 
sense  that  we  have,  both  of  the  reconditeness  of  his  wisdom,  and 
of  the  wondrous  vastness  and  variety  of  his  resources.  It  is  the 
extreme  wideness  of  the  contrast,  between  the  sluggishness  of 
matter  and  the  fineness  of  the  results  in  physiology,  which  so 
enhances  our  veneration  for  the  great  Architect  of  Nature,  when 
we  behold  the  exquisite  organizations  of  the  animal  and  vegetable 
kingdoms.*  The  two  exhibitions  are  wholly  distinct  from  each 
other — yet  each  of  them  may  be  perfect  in  its  own  way.  The 
first  is  held  forth  to  us,  when  one  law  of  pervading  generality  is 
foiind  to  scatter  a  myriad  of  beneficent  consequences  in  its  (rain. 
The  second  is  held  forth,  when,  by  an  infinite  complexity  of 
means,  a  countless  variety  of  expedients  with  (heir  multiform 
combinations,  some  one  design,  such  as  the  upholding  of  life  in 
plants  or  animals  is  accomplished.  Creation  presents  us  in  mar- 
vellous profusion  with  specimens  of  both  these — at  once  confirm- 
ing the  doctrine,  and  illustrating  the  significancy  of  the  expression 
in  which  Scripture  ha(h  conveyed  it  to  us,  when  it  tells  of  the 
manifold  wisdom  of  God. 

30.  But  while,  on  a  principle  already  often  recognised,  this 
multitude  of  necessary  conditions  to  the  accomplishment  of  a 
given  end,  enhances  the  argument  for  a  God,  because  each  se- 
parate condition  reduces  the  hypothesis  of  chance  to  a  more 

*Dr.  Paley  would  state  the  problem  thus.  The  laws  of  matter  being  given,  so  lo 
organize  it,  as  that  it  shall  produce  or  sustain  tiie  phenomena,  wlietlier  of  vegetation 
or  of  life. 

4 


38  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER. 

violent  improbability  than  before  ;   yet  it  must  not  be  disguised 
that  there  is  a  certain  transcendental  mystery  which  it  has  the 
effect  of  aggravating,  and  which  it  leaves  unresolved.     We  can 
understand  the  complex  machinery  and  the  circuitous  processes 
to  which  a  human  artist  must  resort,  that  he  might  overcome  the 
else  uncomplying  obstinacy  of  inert  matter,  and  bend  it  in  sub- 
serviency to  his  special  designs.     But  that  the  Divine  artist 
who  first  created  the  matter  and  ordained  its  laws,  should  find 
the  same  complication  necessary  for  the  accomplishment  of  his 
purposes  ;    that  such  an  elaborate  workmanship,  for  example, 
should  be  required  to  establish  the  functions  of  sight  and  hear- 
ing in  the  animal  economy,  is  very  like  the  lavish  or  ostensible 
ingenuity  of  a   Being  employed   in   conquering   the  difficulty 
which  himself  had  raised.     It  is  true,  the  one  immediate  pur- 
pose is  served  by  it  which  we  have  just  noticed, — that  of  pre- 
senting, as  it  were,  to  the  eye  of  enquirers  a  more  manifold  in- 
scription of  the  Divinity.     But  if,  instead  of  being  the  object  of 
inference,  it  had  pleased  God  to  make  himself  the  object  of  a 
direct  manifestation,  then  for  the  mere  purpose  of  becoming 
known  to  his  creatures,  this  reflex  or  circuitous  method  of  reve- 
lation would  have  been  altogether  uncalled  for.     That  under 
the  actual  system  of  creation,  and  with  its  actual  proofs,  he  has 
made   his  existence  most  decisively  known  to    us,  we    most 
thankfully  admit.     But  when  question  is  made  between  the  ac- 
tual and  the  conceivable  systems  of  creation  which  God  might 
have  emanated,  we  are  forced  to  confess,  that  the  very  circum- 
stances which,  in  the  existing  order  of  things,  have  brightened 
and  enhanced  the  evidence  of  His  being,  have    also    cast   a 
deeper  secrecy  over  what  may  be  termed  the  general  policy  of 
His  government  and  ways.     And  this  is  but  one  of  the  many 
difficulties,  which  men  of  unbridled  speculation  and  unobservant 
of  that  sound  philosophy  that  keeps  within  the  limits  of  human 
observation,  will  find  it  abundantly  possible  to  conjure  up  on 
the  field  of  natural  theism.      It  does    look   an   impracticable 
enigma  that  the  Omnipotent  God,  who  could  have  grafted  all 
the  capacities  of  thought  and  feeling  on  an  elementary  atom, 
should  have  deemed  fit  to  incorporate  the  human  soul  in  the 
midst  of  so  curious  and  complicated  a  frame-work.     For  what 
a  variegated  structure  is  man's  animal  economy.     What  an  ap- 
paratus of  vessels  and  bones  and  ligaments.     What  a  complex 
mechanism.     What  an  elaborate  chemistry.     What  a  multitude 
of  parts  in  the  anatomy,  and  of  processes  in  the  physiology  of 
this  marvellous  system.     What  a  medley,  we  had  almost  said, 
what  a  package  of  contents.     What  an  unwearied  play  of  se- 
cretions and  circulations  and  other  changes  incessant  and  innu- 


INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER.  89 

merable.  In  short,  what  a  laborious  compUcation ;  and  all  to 
uphold  a  living  principle,  which,  one  might  think,  could  by  a 
simple  fiat  of  omnipotence,  have  sprung  forth  at  once  from  the 
great  source  and  centre  of  the  spiritual  system,  and  mingled 
with  the  world  of  spirits — just  as  each  new  particle  of  light  is 
sent  forth  by  the  emanation  of  a  sunbeam,  to  play  and  glisten 
among  the  fields  of  radiance. 

31.  But  to  recall  ourselves  from  this  digression  among  the 
possibilities  of  what  might  have  been,  to  the  realities  of  the 
mental  system,  such  as  it  actually  is.  Ere  we  bring  the  very 
general  observations  of  this  chapter  to  a  close,  we  would  briefly 
notice  an  analogy  between  the  realities  of  the  mental  and  those 
of  the  corporeal  system.  The  enquirers  into  the  latter  have 
found  it  of  substantial  benefit  to  their  science,  to  have  mixed  up 
with  the  prosecution  of  it  a  reference  to  final  causes.  Their 
reasoning  on  the  lil^ely  uses  of  a  part  in  anatomy,  has,  in  some 
instances,  suggested  or  served  as  a  guide  to  speculations,  which 
have  been  at  length  verified  by  a  discovery.  We  believe,  in 
like  manner,  that  reasoning  on  the  likely  or  obvious  uses  of  a 
principle  in  the  constitution  of  the  human  mind,  might  lead,  if 
not  to  the  discovery,  at  least  to  the  confirmation  of  important 
truth — not  perhaps  in  the  science  itself,  but  in  certain  of  the 
cognate  sciences  which  stand  in  no  very  distant  relation  to  it. 
For  example,  we  think  it  should  rectify  certain  errors  which  have 
been  committed  both  in  jurisprudence  and  political  economy,  if 
it  can  be  demonstrated  that  some  of  the  undoubted  laws  of  hu- 
man nature  are  traversed  by  them ;  and  so,  that  violence  is 
thereby  done  to  the  obvious  designs  of  the  Author  of  Nature. 
We  shall  not  hold  it  out  of  place,  though  we  notice  one  or  two 
of  these  instances,  by  which  it  might  be  seen  that  the  mental 
philosophy,  when  studied  in  connection  with  the  palpable  views 
of  Him  by  whom  all  its  principles  and  processes  were  ordained, 
is  fitted  to  enlighten  the  practice  of  legislation,  and  more  espe- 
cially to  determine  the  wisdom  of  certain  arrangements  which 
have  for  their  object  the  economic  well-being  of  society. 

32.  We  feel  the  arduousness  of  our  peculiar  task,  and  the 
feeling  is  not  at  all  alleviated  by  our  sense  of  its  surpassing 
dignity.  The  superiority  of  mind  to  matter  has  often  been  the 
theme  of  eloquence  to  moralists.  For  what  were  all  the  won- 
ders of  the  latter  and  all  its  glories,  without  a  spectator  mind 
that  could  intelligently  view  and  that  could  tastefully  admire 
them?  Let  every  eye  be  irrevocably  closed,  and  this  were 
equivalent  to  the  entire  annihilation  in  nature  of  the  clement  of 
light ;  and  in  like  manner,  if  the  light  of  all  consciousness  were 
put  out  m  the  world  of  mind,  the  world  of  matter,  though  as  rich 


40  INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER. 

in  beauty,  and  in  the  means  of  benevolence  as  before,  were 
thereby  reduced  to  a  virtual  nonentity.  In  these  circumstances, 
the  lighting  up  again  of  even  but  one  mind  would  restore  its 
being,  or  at  least  its  significancy  to  that  system  of  materialism, 
which,  untouched  itself,  had  just  been  desolated  of  all  those  be- 
ings in  whom  it  could  kindle  reflection,  or  to  whom  it  could 
minister  the  sense  of  enjoyment.  It  were  tantamount  to  the 
second  creation  of  it, — or,  in  other  words,  one  living  intelligent 
spirit  is  of  higher  reckoning  and  mightier  import  than  a  dead 
universe. 


PART  I. 

ON  THE  ADAPTATION  OF  EXTERNAL  NATURE  TO  THE  MORAL 

CONSTITUTION  OF  MAN. 


CHAPTER  I. 

On  the  Supremacy  of  Conscience. 

I.    An  abstract  question  in  morals  is  distinct  from  a  question 
respecting  the  constitution  of  man's  moral  nature ;  and  the  for- 
mer ought  no  more  to  be  confounded  with  the  latter,  than  the 
truths  of  geometry  with  the  faculties  of  the  reasoning  mind 
which  comprehends  them.     The  virtuousness  of  justice  was  a 
stable  doctrine  in  ethical  science,  anterior  to  the  existence  of 
the  species ;  and  would  remain  so,  though  the  species  were  de- 
stroyed— just  as  much  as  the  properties  of  a  triangle  are  the  en- 
during stabilities  of  mathematical  science  ;   and  that,  though  no 
matter  had  been  created  to  exemplify  the  positions  or  the  figures 
of  geometry.    The  objective  nature  of  virtue  is  one  thing.     The 
subjective  nature  of  the  human  mind,  by  which  virtue  is  felt  and 
recognized,  is  another.     It  is  not  from  the  former,  any  more 
than  from  the  eternal  truths  of  geometry,  that  we  can  demon- 
strate the  existence  or  attributes  of  God — but  from  the  latter,  a« 
belonging  to  the  facts  of  a  creation  emanating  from  His  will, 
and  therefore  bearing  upon  it  the  stamp  of  His  character.     The 
nature  and  constitution  of  virtue  form  a  distinct  subject  of  en- 
quiry from  the  nature  and  constitution  of  the  human  mind.    Vir- 
tue is  not  a  creation  of  the  Divine  will,  but  has  had  everlasting 
residence  in  the  nature  of  the  Godhead.     The  mind  of  man  is  a 
creation ;  and  therefore  indicates,  by  its  characteristics,  the  cha- 
racter of  Him,  to  the  fiat  and  the  forthgoing  of  whose  will  it 
owes  its  existence.     We  must  frequently,  in  the  course  of  this 
discussion,  advert  to  the  pnnciples  of  ethics ;  but  it  is  not  on  the 
system  of  ethical  doctrine  that  our  argument  properly  is  founded. 
It  is  on  the  phenomena  and  the  laws  of  actual  human  nature, 
which  itself,  one  of  the  great  facts  of  creation,  may  be  regarded 
4* 


42  ON  THE  SUPREMACY  OF  CONSCIENCE. 

like  all  its  facts,  as  bearing  on  it  the  impress  of  that  mind  which 
gave  birth  to  creation. 

2.  But  further.  It  is  not  only  not  with  the  system  of  ethical 
doctrine — it  is  not  even  with  the  full  system  of  the  philosophy 
of  our  nature  that  we  have  properly  to  do.  On  this  last  there  is 
still  a  number  of  unsettled  questions  ;  but  our  peculiar  argument 
does  not  need  to  wait  for  the  conclusive  determination  of  them. 
For  example,  there  is  many  a  controversy  among  philosophers 
respecting  the  primary  and  secondary  laws  of  the  human  consti- 
tution. Now,  if  it  be  an  obviously  beneficial  law,  it  carries 
evidence  for  a  God,  in  the  mere  existence  and  operation  of  it, 
independently  of  the  rank  which  it  holds,  or  of  the  relation  in 
which  it  stands  to  the  other  principles  of  our  internal  mechanism. 
It  is  thus  that  there  may,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  be  grounded 
on  the  law  in  question  a  clear  theological  inference ;  and  yet 
there  may  be  associated  with  it  an  obscure  philosophical  specula- 
tion. It  is  well  that  we  separate  these  two  ;  and,  more  especially, 
that  the  decisive  attestation  given  by  any  part  or  phenomenon 
of  our  nature  to  the  Divine  goodness,  shall  not  be  involved 
in  the  mist  and  metaphysical  perplexity  of  other  reasonings,  the 
object  of  which  is  altogether  distinct  and  separate  from  our  own. 
The  facts  of  the  human  constitution,  apart  altogether  from  the 
philosophy  of  their  causation,  demonstrate  the  wisdom  and  be- 
nevolence of  Him  who  framed  it :  and  while  it  is  our  part  to 
follow  the  light  of  this  philosophy,  as  far  as  the  light  and  the 
guidance  of  it  are  sure,  we  are  not,  in  those  cases,  when  the 
final  cause  is  obvious  as  day,  though  the  proximate  efficient 
cause  should  be  hidden  in  deepest  mystery, — we  are  not,  on  this 
account,  to  confound  darkness  with  light,  or  light  with  darkness. 

3.  By  attending  throughout  to  this  observation,  we  shall  be 
saved  from  a  thousand  irrelevancies  as  well  as  obscurities  of 
argument ;  and  it  is  an  observation  peculiarly  applicable,  in  an- 
nouncing that  great  fact  or  phenomenon  of  mind,  which,  for  many 
reasons,  should  hold  a  foremost  place  in  our  demonstration — we 
mean  the  felt  supremacy  of  conscience.  Philosophers  there  are, 
who  have  attempted  to  resolve  this  fact  into  ulterior  or  ultimate 
ones  in  the  mental  constitution ;  and  who  have  denied  to  the  fa- 
culty a  place  among  its  original  and  uncompounded  principles. 
Sir  James  Macintosh  tells  us  of  the  generation  of  human  con- 
science ;  and,  not  merely  states,  but  endeavours  to  explain  the 
phenomenon  of  its  felt  supremacy  within  us.  Dr.  Adam  Smith 
also  assigns  a  pedigree  to  our  moral  judgments  ;  but,  with  all 
his  peculiar  notions  respecting  the  origin  of  the  awards  of  con- 
science, he  never  once  disputes  their  authority ;  or,  that,  by  the 
general  consent  of  mankind,  this  authority  is,  in  sentiment  and 


ON  THE  SUPREMACY  OF  CONSCIENCE.  43 

opinion  at  least,  conceded  to  them.*     It  is  somewhat  like  an 
antiquarian  controversy  respecting  the  first  formation  and  sub- 
sequent historical  changes  of  some  certain  court  of  government, 
the  rightful  authority  of  whose  decisions  and  acts  is,  at  the  same 
time,  fully  recognized.     And  so,  philosophers  have  disputed  re- 
garding the  court  of  conscience — of  what  materials  it  is  con- 
structed, and  by  what  line  of  genealogy  from  the  anterior  prin- 
ciples of  our  nature  it  has  sprung.     Yet  most  of  these  have 
admitted  the  proper  right  of  sovereignty  which  belongs  to  it ;  its 
legitimate  place  as  the  master  and  the  arbiter  over  all  the  appe- 
tites and  desires  and  practical  forces  of  human  nature.      Or,  if 
any  have  dared  the  singularity  of  denying  this,  they  do  so  in  op- 
position to  the  general  sense  and  general  language  of  mankind, 
whose  very  modes  of  speech  compel  them  to  affirm  that  the  bid- 
dings of  conscience  are  of  paramount  authority — its  peculiar 
office  being  to  tell  what  all  men  should,  or  all  men  ought  to  do. 
4.    The  proposition,  however,  which  we  are  now  urging,  is 
not  that  the  obligations  of  virtue  are  binding,  but  that  man  has  a 
conscience  which  tells  him  that  they  are  so — not  that  justice 
and  truth  and  humanity  are  the  dogmata  of  the  abstract  moral 
system,  but  that  they  are  the  dictates  of  man's  moral  nature — not 
that  in  themselves  they  are  the  constituent  parts  of  moral  recti- 
tude, but  that  there  is  a  voice  within  every  heart  which  thus  pro- 
nounces on  them.      It  is  not  with  the  constitution   of  morality, 
viewed  objectively,  as  a  system  or   theory  of  doctrine,  that  we 
have  properly  to  do  ;    but  with  the  constitution  of  man's  spirit, 
viewed  as  the  subject   of  certain   phenomena  and  laws — and, 
more  particularly,  with  a  great  psychological  fact  in  human  na- 
ture, namely,  the  homage  rendered  by  it  to  the  supremacy  of 
conscience.     In  a  word,  it  is  not  of  a  category,  but  of  a  creation 
that  we  are  speaking.     The  one  can  tell  us  nothing  of  the  divine 
character,  while  the  other  might  afford  most  distinct  and   deci- 
sive indications  of  it.    We  could  found  no  demonstration    what- 
ever of  the  divine  purposes,  on  a  mere  ethical,  any  more  than 
we   could,  on   a  logical  or   mathematical  category.     But  it  is 
very  different  with  an  actual  creation,  whether  in  mind  or  in  mat- 

*  "  Upon  whatever,"  observes  Dr.  Adam  Smith,  "  we  suppose  our  moral  faculties 
to  be  founded,  whether  upon  a  certain  modification  of  reason,  upon  an  original  instinct 
called  a  moral  sense,  or  upon  some  other  principle  of  our  nature,  it  cannot  be  doubted 
that  they  were  given  us  for  the  direction  of  our  conduct  in  this  life.  They  carry  along 
with  them  the  most  evident  badges  of  this  authority,  which  denote  that  they  were  set 
up  within  us  to  be  the  supreme  arbiters  of  all  our  actions,  to  superintend  all  our 
senses,  passions  and  appetites,  and  to  judge  how  far  each  of  them  was  either  to  be 
indulged  or  restrained.  It  is  the  peculiar  office  of  these  faculties  to  judge,  to  bestow 
censure  or  applause  upon  all  the  other  principlesof  our  nature." 

Theory  nf  Moral  Sentiments,  Part  iii.  chap,  v 


44  ON    THE    SUPREMACY    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

ter — a  mechanism  of  obviou3  contrivance,  and  whose  workings 
and  tendencies,  therefore,  must  be  referred  to  the  design,  and  so 
to  the  disposition  or  character  of  that  Being,  whose  spirit  hath 
devised  and  whose  fingers  have  framed  it. 

5.    And  neither  do  we  urge  the  proposition  that  conscienceTiasl 
in  every  instance,  the  actual  direction  of  human  affairs,  for  this  ■ 
were  in  the  face  of  all  experience.     It  is  not  that  every  man  j 
obeys  her  dictates,  but  that  every  man  feels  he  ought  to  obey ! 
them.     These  dictates  are  often  in  life  and  practice  disregarded  :  | 
so  that  conscience  is  not  the  sovereign  de  facto.     Still  there  is! 
a  voice  within  the  hearts  of  all  which  asserts  that  conscience  is  \ 
the  sovereign  de  jure  ;  that  to  her  belongs  the  command  right-  ■ 
fully,  even  though  she  do  not  possess  it  actually.     In  a  season 
of  national   anarchy,  the  actual  power  and  the  legitimate   au- 
thority are  often  disjoined  from  each  other.      The  lawful  mo- 
narch may  be  dethroned,  and  so  lose  the  might ;   while  he  conti- 
nues to  possess — nay,  while  he  may  be  ackno\\ledged  through- 
out his  kingdom  to  possess  the  right  of  sovereignty.     The  dis- 
tinction still  is  made,  even  under  this  reign  of  violence,  between 
the  usurper  and  the  lawful  sovereign  ;  and  there  is  a  similar  dis- 
tinction among  the  powers  and  principles  of  the  human  consti- 
tution, when  an  insurrection  takes  place  of  the  inferior  against 
the  superior  ;   and  conscience,  after  being  dethroned  from  her 
place  of  mastery  and  control,  is  still  felt  to  be  the  superior,  or 
rather  supreme  faculty  of  our  nature  notwithstanding.     She  may 
have  fallen  from  her  dominion,  yet  still  wear  the  badges  of  a  fal- 
len   sovereign,    having   the    acknowledged  right    of  authority, 
though  the  power  of  enforcement  has  been  wrested  away  from 
her.     She  may  be  outraged  in  all  her  prerogatives  by  the  lawless 
appetites    of   our  nature, — but  not  without  the  accompanyini' 
sense  within  of  an  outrage  and  a  wrong  having  been  inflicted^ 
and  a  reclaiming  voice  from  thence  which  causes  itself  to  be 
heard  and  which  remonstrates  against  it.     The  insurgent  and 
inferior  principles  of  our  constitution  may,  in  the  uproar  of  (heir 
wild  mutiny,  lift  a  louder  and  more  effective  voice  than  the  small 
still  voice  of  conscience.     They  have  the  might  but  not  (he  rif^ht. 
Conscience,  on  the  other  hand,  is  felt  to  have  the  right  though^not 
the  might — the  legislative  office  being  that  which"  properly  be- 
longs to  her,  though  the  executive  power  should  be  wanting  to 
enforce  her  enactments.     It  is  not  the  reigning  but  the  rightful 
authority  of  conscience  that  we,  under  the  name  of  her  suprema- 
cy, contend  for  ;  or,  rather  the  fact  that,  by  the  consent  of  all  oui- 
higher  principles  and  feelings,  this  rightful  authority  is  reputed  to 
be  hers  ;  and,  by  the  general  concurrence  of  mankind  awarded 
to  her. 


ON  THE  SUPREMACY  OF  CONSCIENCE.  45 

6.  And  here  it  is  of  capital  importance  to  distinguish  between 
an  original  and  proper  tendency,  and  a  subsequent  aberration. 
This  has  been  well  illustrated  by  the  regulator  of  a  watch.,  whose 
office  and  primary  design,  and  that  obviously  announced  by  the 
relation  in  which  it  stands  to  the  other  narts  of  the  machinery, 
is  to  control  the  velocity  of  its  movements.  And  we  should  still 
perceive  this  to  have  been  its  destination,  even  though,  by  acci- 
dent or  decay,  it  had  lost  the  power  of  command  which  at  the 
first  belonged  to  it.  We  should  not  misunderstand  the  purpose 
of  its  maker,  although,  in  virtue  of  some  deterioration  or  de- 
rangement which  the  machinery  had  undergone,  that  purpose 
were  now  fmstrated.  And  we  could  discern  the  purpose  in  the 
very  make  and  constitution  of  the  mechanism.  We  might  even 
see  it  to  be  an  irregular  watch ;  and  yet  this  needs  not  prevent 
us  from  seeing,  that,  at  its  original  fabrication,  it  was  made  for 
the  purpose  of  moving  regularly.  The  mere  existence  and  po- 
sition of  the  regulator  might  suffice  to  indicate  this, — although  it 
had  become  powerless,  either  from  the  wearing  of  the  parts,  or 
from  some  extrinsic  disturbance  to  which  the  instrument  had 
been  exposed.  The  regulator,  in  this  instance,  may  be  said  to 
have  the  right,  though  not  the  power  of  command,  over  the 
movements  of  the  timepiece  ;  yet  the  loss  of  the  power  has  not 
obliterated  the  vestiges  of  the  right ;  so  that,  by  the  inspection 
of  the  machinery  alone,  we  both  learn  the  injury  which  has  been 
done  to  it,  and  the  condition  in  which  it  originally  came  from  the 
"hand  of  its  maker — a  condition  of  actual  as  well  as  rightful  su- 
premacy, on  the  part  of  the  regulator,  over  all  its  movements. 
And  a  similar  discovery  may  be  made,  by  examination  of  the  va- 
rious parts  and  principles  which  make  up  the  moral  system  of 
man :  for  we  see  various  parts  and  principles  there.  We  see 
Ambition,  having  power  for  its  object,  and  without  the  attainment 
of  which  it  is  not  satisfied  ;  and  Avarice,  having  wealth  for  its 
object,  without  the  attainment  of  which  it  is  not  satisfied ;  and 
Benevolence,  having  for  its  object  the  good  of  others,  without  the 
attainment  of  which  it  is  not  satisfied  ;  and  the  love  of  Reputation, 
having  for  its  object  their  applause,  without  which  it  is  not  satis- 
fied ;  and  lastly,  to  proceed  no  further  in  the  enumeration.  Con- 
science, which  surveys  and  superintends  the  whole  maur  whose\ 
distinct  and  appropriate  object  it  is  to  have  the  entire  control  both 
of  his  inward  desires  and  outward  doings,  and  without  the  attain-  \ 
ment  of  this  it  is  thwarted  from  its  proper  aim,  and  remains  un-  ' 
satisfied.'  Each  appetite,  or  affection  of  our  nature,  has  its  own 
distinct  object ;  but  this  last  is  the  object  of  Conscience,  which 
may  be  termed  the  moral  affection.  The  place  which  it  occu-" 
pies,  or  rather  which  it  is  felt  that  it  should  occupy,  and  which 


46  ON  THE  SUPREMACY  OF  CONSCIENCE. 

naturally  belongs  to  it,  is  that  of  a  governor,  claiming  the  supe- 
riority, and  taking  to  itself  the  direction  over  all  the  other  powers 
and  passions  of  humanity.  If  this  superiority  be  denied  to  it, 
there  is  a  felt  violence  done  to  flie  whole  economy  of  man.  The 
sentiment  is,  that  the  thing  is  not  as  it  should  be :  and  even 
after  conscience  is  forced,  in  virtue  of  some  subsequent  derange- 
ment, from  this  station  of  rightful  ascendency,  we  can  still  dis- 
tinguish between  what  is  the  primitive  design  or  tendency,  and 
what  is  the  posterior  aberration.  We  can  perceive,  in  the  case 
of  a  deranged  or  distempered  watch,  that  the  mechanism  is  out 
of  order ;  but  even  then,  on  the  bare  examination  of  its  work- 
manship, and  more  especially  from  the  place  and  bearing  of  its 
regulator,  can  we  pronounce  that  it  was  made  for  moving  regu- 
larly. And  in  like  manner,  on  the  bare  inspection  of  our  mental 
economy  alone,  and  more  particularly  from  the  place  which 
conscience  has  there,  can  we,  even  in  the  case  of  the  man  who 
refuses  to  obey  its  dictates,  affirm  that  he  was  made  for  walking 
conscientiously. 

7.  The  distinction  which  we  now  labour  to  establish  between 
conscience,  and  the  other  principles  of  our  nature,  does  not  re- 
spect the  actual  force  or  prevalence  which  may,  or  may  not, 
severally  belong  to  them.  It  respects  the  universal  judgment 
which,  by  the  very  constitution  of  our  nature,  is  passed  on  the 
question  of  rightness — on  the  question,  which  of  all  these  should 
have  the  prevalence,  whenever  there  happens  to  be  a  contest 
between  them.  All  which  we  affirm  is,  that  if  conscience  pre- 
vail over  the  other  principles,  then  every  man  is  led,  by  the  very 
make  and  mechanism  of  his  internal  economy,  to  feel  that  this 
is  as  it  ought  to  be  ;  or,  if  these  others  prevail  over  conscience,, 
that  this  is  not  as  it  ought  to  be.  One,  it  is  generally  felt,  may! 
be  too  ambitious,  or  too  much  set  on  wealth  and  fame,*or  too 
resentful  of  injury,  or  even  too  facile  in  his  benevolence,  when 
carried  to  the  length  of  being  injudicious  and  hurtful ;  but  no 
one  is  ever  felt,  if  he  have  sound  and  enlightened  views  of  mo-i 
rality,  to  be  too  conscientious.  When  we"  affirm  tliis'  oT  c^n** 
science,  we  but  concur  in  the  homage  rendered  to  it  by  all  men, 
as  being  the  rightful,  if  not  the  actual  superior,  among  all  the 
feelings  and  faculties  of  our  nature.  It  is  a  truth,  perhaps,  too 
simple  for  being  reasoned ;  but  this  is  because,  like  many  of 
the  most  important  and  undoubted  certainties  of  human  belief, 
it  is  a  truth  of  instant  recognition.  When  stating  the  supremacy 
of  conscience,  in  the  sense  that  we  have  explained  it,  we  but 
state  what  all  men  feel ;  and  our  only  argument,  in  proof  of  the 
assertion,  is — our  only  argument  can  be,  an  appeal  to  the  expe- 
rience of  all  men. 


ON    THE    SUPREMACY    OP    CONSCIENCE.  47 

8.  Bishop  Butler  has  often  been  spoken  of  as  the  first  dis- 
coverer of  this  great  principle  in  our  nature  ;  though,  perhaps, 
no  man  can  properly  be  said  to  discover  what  all  men  are  con- 
scious of.  But  certain  it  is,  that  he  is  the  first  who  hath  made 
it  the  subject  of  a  full  and  reflex  cognizance.  It  forms  the  ar- 
gument of  his  three  first  sermons,  in  a  volume  which  may  safely 
be  pronounced,  the  most  prf^pious  repository  of  sound  ethical 
principles  extant  in  any  language.  The  authority  of  conscience, 
says  Dugald  Stewart,  "  although  beautifully  described  by  many 
of  the  ancient  moralists,  was  not  sufficiently  attended  to  b_y 
modern  writers,  as  a  fundamental  principle  in  the  science  of 
ethics,  till  the  time  of  Dr.  Butler."  It  belongs  to  the  very  es- 
sence of  the  principle,  that  we  clearly  distinguish,  between  what 
we  find  to  be  the  actual  force  of  conscience,  and  what  we  feel 
to  be  its  rightful  authority.  These  two  may  exist  in  a  state  of 
separation  from  each  other  just  as  in  a  Civil  Government, 
the  reigning  power  may,  in  seasons  of  anarchy,  be  dissevered 
from  that  supreme  court  or  magistrate  to  whom  it  rightfully  be- 
longs. The  mechanism  of  a  political  fabric  is  not  adequately 
or  fully  described  by  the  mere  enumeration  of  its  parts.  There 
must  also  enter  into  the  description,  the  relation  which  the  parts 
bear  to  each  other  ;  and  more  especially,  the  paramount  relation 
of  rightful  ascendency  and  direction,  which  that  part,  in  which 
the  functions  of  Government  are  vested,  bears  to  the  whole. 
Neither  is  the  mechanism  of  man's  personal  constitution  fully 
or  adequately  described,  by  merely  telling  us  in  succession  the 
several  parts  of  which  it  is  composed — as  the  passions,  and  the 
appetites,  and  the  affections,  and  the  moral  sense,  and  the  in- 
tellectual capacities,  which  make  up  this  complex  and  variously 
gifted  creature.  The  particulars  of  his  mental  system  must  not 
only  be  stated,  each  in  their  individuality ;  but  the  bearing  or 
connection  which  each  has  with  the  rest — else  it  is  not  described 
as  a  system  at  all.  In  making  out  this  description,  we  should 
not  only  not  overlook  the  individual  faculty  of  conscience,  but 
we  must  not  overlook  its  relative  place  among  the  other  feel- 
ings and  faculties  of  our  nature.  That  place  is  the  place  of 
command.  What  conscience  lays  claim  to  is  the  mastery  or 
regulation  over  the  whole  man.  Each  desire  of  our  nature  rests 
or  terminates  in  its  own  appropriate  object,  as  the  love  of  fame 
in  applause,  or  hunger  in  food,  or  revenge  in  the  infliction  of  pain 
upon  its  object,  or  affection  for  another  in  the  happiness  and  I 
company  of  the  beloved  individual.  But  the  object  of  the  mo- j 
ral  sense  is  to  arbitrate  and  direct  among  all  these  propensities. ' 
It  claims  the  station  and  the  prerogative  of  a  mistress  over  them. 
Its  peculiar  office  is  that  of  superintendence,  and  there  is  a 


48  ON    THE    SUPREMACY    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

certain  feeling  of  violence  or  disorder,  when  the  mandates  which 
it  issues  in  this  capacity,  are  not  carried  into  effect.  Every 
affection  in  our  nature  is  appeased  by  the  object  that  is  suited  to 
jThe  object  of  conscience  is  the  subordination  of  the  whole 
to  its  dictates.  Without  this  it  remains  unappeased,  and  as  if 
bereft  of  its  rights.  It  is  not  a  single  faculty,  taldng  its  own  se- 
parate and  unconnected  place  an^Hsng  the  other  feelings  and  fa- 
culties which  belong  to  us.  Its  proper  place  is  that  of  a  guide 
I  or  a  governor.  It  is  the  ruling  power  in  our  nature  ;  and  its 
f  proper,  its  legitimate  business,  is  to  prescribe  that  man  shall  be 
'as  he  ought,  and  do  as  he  ought.  But  instead  of  expatiating 
any  further  at  present  in  language  of  our  own,  let  us  here  admit 
a  few  brief  sentences  from  Butler  himself,  that  great  and  inva- 
luable expounder  both  of  the  human  constitution,  and  of  moral 
science.  "  That  principle  by  which  we  survey,  and  either  ap- 
prove or  disapprove  our  own  heart,  temper,  and  actions,  is  not 
only  to  be  considered  as  what  in  its  turn  is  to  have  some  influ- 
ence, which  may  be  said  of  every  passion,  of  the  basest  appe- 
tites :  but  likewise  as  being  superior ;  as  from  its  very  nature 
manifestly  claiming  superiority  over  all  others  :  insomuch  that 
you  cannot  form  a  notion  of  this  faculty  conscience,  without 
taking  in  judgment  direction  and  superintendency.  This  is  a 
constituent  part  of  the  idea,  that  is  of  the  faculty  itself:  and  to 
preside  and  govern,  from  the  very  economy  and  constitution  of 
man,  belongs  to  it.  Had  it  strength,  as  it  has  right ;  had  it 
power,  as  it  has  manifest  authority ;  it  would  absolutely  govern 
the  w^rW«"  ".iThis  faculty  was  placed  within  us  to  be  our  pro- 
r  per  governor  ;  to  direct  and  regulate  all  under  principles,  pas- 
sions, and  motives  of  action.  This  is  its  right  and  office. 
Thus  sacred  is  its  authority.  And  how  often  soever  men 
violate  and  rebeUiously  refuse  to  submit  to  it,  for  supposed  in- 
terest which  they  cannot  otherwise  obtain,  or  for  the  sake  of 
passion  which  they  cannot  otherwise  gratify ;  this  makes  no 
alteration  as  to  the  natural  right  and  office  of  conscience.  _.^ 
9.  ISTowTtis  in  these  phenomena  of  Conscience  that  Nature 
;  offers  to  us,  far  her  strongest  argument,  for  the  moral  character 
'  of  God.  Had  He  been  an  unrighteous  Being  himself,  would  He 
have  given  to  this  the  obviously  superior  faculty  in  man,  so  dis- 
tinct and  authoritative  a  voice  on  the  side  of  righteousness? 
Would  He  have  so  constructed  the  creatures  of  our  species,  as  to 
have  planted  in  every  breast  a  reclaiming  witness  against  him- 
self? Would  He  have  thus  inscribed  on  the  tablet  of  every  heart 
the  sentence  of  his  own  condemnation ;  and  is  not  this  just  as 
unlikely,  as  that  He  should  have  inscribed  it  in  written  cha- 
racters on  the  forehead  of  each  individual  ?  Would  He  so  have 


I 


ON    THE    SUPREMACY   OF    CONSCIENCE.  49 

fashioned  the  workmanship  of  His  own  hands  ;  or,  if  a  God  of  cru- 
elty, injustice,  and  falsehood,  would  He  have  placed  in  the  station 
of  master  and  judge  that  faculty  which,  felt  to  be  the  highest  in 
our  nature,  would  prompt  a  generous  and  high-minded  revolt  of 
all  our  sentiments  against  the  Being  who  formed  us?  From  a 
God  possessed  of  such  characteristics,  we  should  surely  have  ex- 
pected a  differently-moulded  humanity  ;   or,  in  other  words,  from 
the  actual  constitution  of  man,  from  the  testimonies  on  the  side 
of  all  righteousness,  given  by  the  vicegerent  within  the  heart,  do 
we  infer  the  righteousness  of  the  Sovereign  who  placed  it  there. 
He  would  never  have  established  a  conscience  in  man,  aiid  in- 
vested it  with  the  authority  of  a  monitor,  and  given  to  it  those 
legislative  and  judicial  functions  which  it  obviously  possesses  ;    i 
and  then  so  framed  it,  that  all  its  decisions  should  be  on  the  side    \ 
of  that  virtue  which  he  himself  disowned,  and  condemnatory  of   J 
that  vice  which  he  himself  exemplified.     This  is  an  evidence  for     \ 
the  righteousness  of  God,  which  keeps  its  ground,   amid  all  the     i 
disorders  and  aberrations  to  which  humanity  is  liable  ;  and  can      ! 
no  more,   indeed,  be  deafened  or  overborne  by  these,  than  is  the     | 
rightful  authority  of  public  opinion,  by  the   occasional  outbreak-  y  ^ 
ings  of  iniquity  and  violence  which  take  place  in  society.     This 
public  opinion  may,  in  those  seasons  of  misrule  when  might  pre- 
vails over  right,  be  deforced  from  the  practical  ascendency  which 
it  ought  to  have  ;  but  the  very  sentiment  that  it  so  ought,  is  our 
reason  for  believing  the  world  to  have  been  originally  formed,  in 
order  that  virtue   might  have  the  rule  over  it.     In  like  maniierTl 
when,  in  the  bosom  of  every  individual  man,  we  can  discern  a 
conscience,  placed  there  with  the   obvious  design  of  being  a 
guide  and  a  commander,  it  were  difficult  not  to  believe,  that, 
whatever  the  partial  outrages  may  be  which  the  cause  of  virtue 
has  to  sustain,  it  has  the  public  mind  of  the  universe  in  its  favour  ;    * 
and  that  therefore  He,  who  is  the  Maker  and  the  Ruler  of  such  a  ' 
universe,  is  a  God  of  righteousness.     Amid  all  the   subsequent  j 
obscurations  and  errors,  the   original  design,  both  of  a  deranged 
watch  and  of  a  deranged  human  nature,  is  alike  manifest ;   first, 
of  the  maker  of  the   watch,  that   its  motions  should   harmonize 
with  time;   second,  of  the  maker  of  man,  that  his  movements 
should  harmonize  with  truth  and  righteousness.     We    can,  in 
most  cases,  discern  between  an  aberration  and  an  original  law  ; 
between  a  direct  or  primitive  tendency  and  the  effect  of  a  disturb- 
ing force,  by  which  that  tendency  is   thwarted  and  overborne. 
And  so  of  the  constitution  of  man.     It  may  be  now  a  loosened 
and  disproportioned  thing,  yet  we  can  trace  the  original  structure 
— even  as  from  the  fragments  of  a  ruin,  we  can  obtain  the  per- 
fect model  of  a  building  from  its  capital  to  its  base.     It  is  thus 


5 


60  ON    THE    SUPREMACY   OF    CONSCIENCE* 

that,  however  prostrate  conscience  may  have  fallen,  we  can  still 
discern  its  place  of  native  and  original  pre-eminence,  as  being  at 
once  the  legislator  and  the  judge  in  the  moral  system,  though 
the  executive  forces  of  the  system  have  ma^insurrection  against 
it,  and  thrown  the  whole  into  anarchy.^ There  is  a  depth  of  mys- 
f  iGxy  in  every  thing  connected  withthe  existence  or  the  origin  of 
evil  in  creation ;  yet,  even  in  the  fiercest  uproar  of  our  stormy 
passions.  Conscience,  though  in  her  softest  whispers,  gives  to 
the  supremacy  of  rectitude  the  voice  of  an  undying  testimony  ; 
and  her  light  still  shining  in  a  dark  place,  her  unquelled  ac- 
cents still  heard  in  the  loudest  outcry  of  Nature's  rebellious  ap- 
petites, form  the  strongest  argument  within  reach  of  the  human 
faculties,  that,  in  spite  of  all  partial  or  temporary  derangements. 
Supreme  Pqwfir  and  Supreme  Goodness  are  at  one.  It  is  true 
~that  reT)ellious  man  hath,  with  daring  footstep,  trampled  on  the 
lessons  of  Conscience  ;  but  why,  in  spite  of  man's  perversity,  is 
conscience,  on  the  other  hand,  able  to  lift  a  voice  so  piercing  and 
so  powerful,  by  which  to  remonstrate  against  the  wrong,  and  to 
reclaim  the  honours  that  are  due  to  her?  How  comes  it  that,  in 
the  mutiny  and  uproar  of  the  inferior  faculties,  that  faculty  in  man, 
which  wears  the  stamp  and  impress  of  the  highest,  should  remain 
on  the  side  of  truth  and  holiness  1  Would  humanity  have  thus 
been  moulded  by  a  false  and  evil  spirit ;  or  would  he  have  com- 
mitted such  impolicy  against  himself,  as  to  insert  in  each  mem- 
ber of  our  species  a  principle  which  would  make  him  feel  the 
greatest  complacency  in  his  own  rectitude,  when  he  feels  the 
most  high-minded  revolt  of  indignation  and  dislike  against  the 
Being  who  gave  him  birth?  It  is  not  so  much  that  Conscience 
takes  a  part  among  the  other  faculties  of  our  nature  ;  but  that 
Conscience  takes  among  them  the  part  of  a  governor,  and  that 
man,  if  lie  do  not  obey  her  suggestions,  still,  in  despite  of  him- 
self, acknowledges  her  rights.  It  is  a  mighty  argument  for  the 
virtue  of  the  governor  above,  that  ail  the  laws  and  injunctions  of 
the  governor  below  are  on  the  side  of  virtue.  It  seems  as  if  He 
had  left  this  representative,  or  remaining  witness,  for  Himself, 
in  a  world  that  had  cast  off  its  allegiance  ;  and  that,  from  the 
voice  of  the  judge  within  the  breast,  we  may  learn  the  will  and 
the  character  of  Him  who  hath  invested  with  such  authority  his 
dictates.  It  is  this  which  speaks  as  much  more  demonstratively 
for  the  presidency  of  a  righteous  God  in  human  affairs,  than  for 
that  of  impure  or  unrighteous  demons,  as  did  the  rod  of  Aaron, 
when  it  swallowed  the  rods  of  the  enchanters  and  magicians  in 
Egypt.  In  the  wildest  anarchy  of  man's  insurgent  appetites  and 
sins,  there  is  still  a  reclaiming  voice — a  voice  which,  even  when 
in  practice  disregarded,  it  is  impossible  not  to  own  ;  and  to  which. 


ON    THE    SUPREMACY    OF    CONSCIENCE.  51 

at  the  very  moment  that  we  refuse  our  obedience,  we  find  that 
we  cannot  refuse  the  homage  of  what  ourselves  do  feel  and 
acknowledge  to  be  the  best,  the  highest  principles  of  our 
nature. 

ro.   However  difficult  from  the  very  simplicity  of  the  subject  it 
may  be,  to  state  or  to  reason  the  argument  for  a  God,  which  is 
founded  on  the  supremacy  of  conscience — still,  historically  and 
experimentally,  it  will  be  found,  that  it  is  of  more  force  than  all 
other  arguments  put  together,  for  originating  and  upholding  the 
natural  theism  which  there  is  in  the  world.     The  theology  of 
conscience  is  not  only  of  wider  diffusion,  but  of  far  more  practi- 
cal influence  than  the  theology  of  academic  demonstration.     The 
Tatlociiiation  by  which  this  theology  is  established,  is  not  the  less 
firm  or  the  less  impressive,  that,  instead  of  a  lengthened  process, 
there  is  but  one  step  between  the  premises  and  the  conclusion — 
or,  that  the  felt  presence  of  a  judge  within  the  breast,  powerfully 
and  immediately  suggests  the  notion  of  a  Supreme  Judge  and 
Sovereign,  who  placed  it  there.     Upon  this  question,  the  mind 
does  not  stop  short  at  mere  abstraction  ;  but,  passing  at  once  from 
the  abstract  to  the  concrete,  from  the  law  of  the  heart,  it  makes 
the  rapid  inference  of  a  lawgiver.     It  is  the  very  rapidity  of  this 
inference  which  makes  it  appear  like  intuition ;  and  which  has 
given  birth  to  the  mystic  theology  of  innate  ideas.     Yet  the  the- 
ology of  conscience  disclaims  such  mysticism,  built,  as  it  is,  on  a 
foundation  of  sure  and  sound  reasoning ;   for  the  strength  of  an 
argumentation  in  nowise  depends  upon  the  length  of  it.     The 
sense  of  a  governing  principle  within,  begets  in  all  men  the  sen- 
timent of  a  living  governor  without  and  above  them,  and  it  does 
so  with  all  the  speed  of  an  instantaneous  feeling  ;  yet  it  is  not  an 
impression,  it  is  an  inference  notwithstanding — and  as  much  so 
as  any  inference  from  that  which  is  seen,  to  that  which  is  unseen. 
There  is,  in  the  first  instance,  cognizance  taken  of  a  fact — if  not 
by  the  outward  eye,  yet  as  good,  by  the  eye  of  consciousness 
which  has  been  termed  the  faculty  of  internal  observation.      And 
the  consequent  belief  of  a  God,  instead  of  being  an  instinctive 
sense  of  the  Divinity,  is  the  fruit  of  an  inference  grounded  on  that 
fact.     There  is  instant  transition  made,  from  the  sense  of  a  Mo- 
nitor within  to  the  faith  of  a  living  Sovereign  above  ;  and  this 
argument,  described  by  all,  but  with  such  speed  as  almost  to 
warrant  the  expression  of  its  being  felt  by  all,  may  be  regarded, 
notwithstanding  the  force  and  fertility  of  other  considerations,  as 
the  great  prop  of  natural  religion  among  men. 

11.  And  we  mistake,  if  we  think  it  was  ever  otherwise,  even 
in  the  ages  of  darkest  and  most  licentious  paganism.  This  the- 
ology of  conscience  has  often  been  greatly  obscured,  but  never, 


52  ON    THE    SUPREMACY    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

in  any  country  or  at  any  period  in  the  history  of  the  world,  has  it 
been  wholly  obliterated.  We  behold  the  vestiges  of  it  in  the  sim- 
ple theology  of  the  desert;  and,  perhaps,  more  distinctly  there,  than 
m  the  complex  superstitions  of  an  artificial  and  civilized  heathenism. 
In  confirmation  of  this,  we  might  quote  the  invocations  to  the 
Great  Spirit  from  the  wilds  of  North  America.  But,  indeed,  in 
every  quarter  of  the  globe,  where  missionaries  have  held  converse 
with  savages,  even  with  the  rudest  of  nature's  cliildren — when 
speaking  on  the  topics  of  sin  and  judgment,  they  did  not  speak  to 
them  in  vocables  unknown.  And  as  this  sense  of  a  universal  law 
and  a  Supreme  Lawgiver  never  waned  into  total  extinction  among 
the  tribes  of  ferocious  and  untamed  wanderers — so  neither  was  it 
altogether  stifled  by  the  refined  and  intricate  polytheism  of  more 
enlightened  nations.  The  whole  of  classic  authorship  teems  with 
allusions  to  a  Supreme  Governor  and  Judge :  And  when  the 
guilty  Emperors  of  Rome  were  tempest-driven  by  remorse  and 
fear,  it  was  not  that  they  trembled  before  a  spectre  of  their  own 
imagination.  When  terror  mixed,  which  it  often  did,  with  the 
rage  and  cruelty  of  Nero,  it  was  the  theology  of  conscience  which 
haunted  him.  It  was  not  the  suggestion  of  a  capricious  fancy 
which  gave  him  the  disturbance — but  a  voice  issuing  from  the 
deep  recesses  of  a  moral  nature,  as  stable  and  uniform  throughout 
the  species  as  is  the  material  structure  of  humanity ;  and  in  the 
lineaments  of  which  we  may  read  that  there  is  a  moral  regimen 
among  men,  and  therefore  a  moral  Governor  who  hath  instituted, 
and  who  presides  over  it.  Therefore  it  was  that  these  imperial 
despots,  the  worst  and  haughtiest  of  recorded  monarchs,  stood 
aghast  at  the  spectacle  of  their  own  worthlessness.  It  is  true, 
there  is  a  wretchedness  which  naturally  and  essentially  belongs  to 
a  state  of  great  moral  unhingement;  and  this  may  account  fqr_ 
their  discomforts,  but  it  will  not  account  for  their  fears.  /'They 
may,  because  of  this,  have  felt  the  torments  of  a  present  misery. 
But  whence  their  fears  of  a  coming  vengeance  ?  They  would 
not  have  trembled  at  nature's  law,  apart  from  the  thought  of 
nature's  lawgiver.  The  imagination  of  an  unsanctioned  law 
would  no  more  have  given  disquietude,  than  the  imagination  of  a 
vacant  throne.  But  the  law,  to  their  guilty  apprehensions,  bespoke 
a  judge.  The  throne  of  heaven,  to  their  troubled  eye,  was 
filled  by  a  living  monarch.  Righteousness,  it  was  felt,  would  not 
have  been  so  enthroned  in  the  moral  system  of  man,  had  it  not 
been  previously  enthroned  in  the  system  of  the  universe  ;  nor 
would  it  have  held  such  a  place  and  pre-eminence  in  the  judgment 
of  all  spirits,  had  not  the  father  of  spirits  been  its  friend  and  ulti- 
mate avenger.  This  is  not  a  local  or  geographical  notion.  It 
is  a  universal  feeling — to  be  found  wherever  men  are  to  be  found* 


ON    THE    SUPREMACY    OF    CONSCIENCE.  53 

because  interwoven  with  the  constitution  of  humanity.  It  is  not, 
therefore,  the  pecuUarity  of  one  creed,  or  of  one  country.  It 
circulates  at  large  throughout  the  family  of  man.  We  can  trace 
it  in  the  theology  of  savage  life ;  nor  is  it  wholly  overborne  by 
the  artificial  theology  of  a  more  complex  and  idolatrous  paganism. 
Neither  crime  nor  civilization  can  extinguish  it ;  and,  whether  in 
the  "  conscientia  scelerum"  of  the  fierce  and  frenzied  Cataline,  or 
in  the  tranquil  contemplative  musings  of  Socrates  and  Cicero, 
we  find  the  impression  of  at  once  a  righteous  and  a  reigning 
Soxfixgign. 

12.  And  it  confirms  still  more  our  idea  of  a  government — that 
conscience  not  only  gives  forth  her  mandates  with  the  tone  and 
authority  of  a   Superior ;  but,  as  if  on  purpose  to  enforce  their 

',  observance,  thus  follows  them  up  with  an  obvious  discipline  of 
j  rewards  and  punishments.     It  is  enough  but  to  mention,  on  the 
/  one  hand,  that  felt  complacency  which  is   distilled,  like  some 
I  precious  elixir,  upon  the  heart  by  the  recollection  of  virtuous 
,  deeds  and  virtuous  sacrifices ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  those  in- 
i^flictions  of  remorse,  which  are  attendant  upon  wickedness,  and 
jwherewith,  as  if  by  the  whip  of  a  secret  tormentor,  the  heart  of 
jevery  conscious  sinner  is  agonized.     We  discern  in  these  the 
/natural  sanctions  of  morality,  and  the  moral  character  of  Him 
Vwho  hath  ordained  them.     We  cannot   otherwise  explain   the 
peace  and  triumphant  satisfaction  which  spring  from  the  con- 
sciousness of  well  doing — nor  can  we  otherwise   explain  the 
degradation  as  well  as  bitter  distress,  which  a  sense  of  demerit 
.bnn^^-aloiig  with  it.      Our  only  adequate  interpretation  of  these 
/phenomena  is,  that  they  are  the  present  remunerations  or  the 
\  present  chastisements  of  a  God  who  loveth  righteousness,  and 
•who  hateth  iniquity.      Nor  do  we  view  them  as  the  conclusive 
res'utts  of  virtue  and  vice,  but  rather  as  the  tokens  and  the  pre- 
cursors either  of  a  brighter  reward  or  of  a  heavier  vengeance, 
that  are  coming.     It  is  thus  that  the  delight  of  self-approbation, 
instead  of  standing  alone,  brings  hope  in  its  train ;  and  remorse, 
instead  of  standing  alone,  brings  terror  in  its  train.     The  ex- 
pectations of  the  future  are  blended  with  these  joys  and  suffer- 
ings of  the  present ;   and  all  serve  still  more  to  stamp  an  impres- 
sion, of  which  traces  are  to  be  found  in  every  quarter  of  the 
earth — that  we  live  under  a  retributive  economy,  and  that  the 
God  who  reigns  over  it  takes  a  moral  and  judicial  cognizance 
of  the  creatures  whom  He  hath  formed. 

13.  What  then  are  the  specific  injunctions  of  conscience  ?  for 
on  this  question  essenfially  depends  every  argument  that  we  can 
derive  from  this  power  or  property  of  our  nature,  for  the  moral 
character  of  God.     If,  on  the  one  hand,  the  lessons  given  forth 

5* 


54  ON    THE    SUPREMACY    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

by  a  faculty,  which  so  manifestly  claims  to  be  the  pre-eminent 
and  ruling  faculty  of  our  nature,  be  those  of  deceit  and  licen- 
tiousness and  cruelty — then,  from  the  character  of  such  a  law, 
should  we  infer  the  character  of  the  lawgiver ;  and  so  feel  the 
conclusion  to  be  inevitable,  that  we  are  under  the  government 
of  a  malignant  and  unrighteous  God,  at  once  the  patron  of  vice 
and  the  persecutor  of  virtue  in  the  world.  If  on  the  other  hand, 
temperance,  and  chastity,  and  kindness,  and  integrity,  and  truth, 
be  the  mandates  which  generally,  if  not  invariably  proceed  from 
her — then,  on  the  same  principles  of  judgment,  should  we  reckon 
that  He  who  is  the  author  of  conscience,  and  who  gave  it  the 
place  of  supremacy  and  honour,  which  it  so  obviously  possesses 
in  the  moral  system  of  man,  was  himself  the  friend  and  the  ex- 
emplar of  all  those  virtues  which  enter  into  the  composition  of 
perfect  moral  rectitude.  In  the  laws  and  the  lessons  of  human 
conscience,  would  we  study  the  character  of  the  Godhead,  just 
as  we  should  study  the  views  and  dispositions  of  a  monarch,  in 
the  instructions  given  by  him  to  the  viceroy  of  one  of  his  pro- 
vinces. If,  on  the  one  hand,  virtue  be  prescribed  by  the  autho- 
rity of  conscience,  and  followed  up  by  her  approval,  in  which 
very  approval  there  is  felt  an  inward  satisfaction  and  serenity  of 
spirit,  that  of  itself  forms  a  most  delicious  reward  ;  and  if,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  perpetrations  of  wickedness  are  followed  up  by 
the  voice  of  her  rebuke,  in  which,  identical  with  remorse,  there 
is  a  sting  of  agony  and  discomfort,  amounting  to  the  severest 
penalty — then,  are  we  as  naturally  disposed  to  infer  of  Him  who 
ordained  such  a  mental  constitution  that  He  is  the  righteous 
Governor  of  men,  as,  if  seated  on  a  visible  throne  in  the  midst 
of  us.  He  had  made  the  audible  proclamation  of  His  law,  and  by 
His  own  immediate  hand,  had  distributed  of  His  gifts  to  the 
obedient,  and  inflicted  chastisements  on  the  rebellious.  The 
law  of  conscience  may  be  regarded  as  comprising  all  those  vir- 
tues which  the  hand  of  the  Deity  hath  inscribed  on  the  tablet  of 
the  human  heart,  or  on  the  tablet  of  natural  jurisprudence  ;  and 
an  argument  for  these  being  the  very  virtues  which  characterize 
and  adorn  Himself,  is  that  they  must  have  been  transcribed  from 
the  prior  tablet  of  His  own  nature.  ..,— »— — ^^  — — 

14.  We  are  sensible  that  there  is  much  to  obscure  this  infe- 
rence in  the  actual  circumstances  of  the  world.  More  especially 
— it  has  been  alleged,  on  the  side  of  scepticism,  that  there  is  an 
exceeding  diversity  of  moral  judgments  among  men  ;  that,  out 
of  the  multifarious  decisions  of  the  human  conscience,  no  con- 
sistent code  of  virtue  can  be  framed ;  and  that,  therefore,  no  con- 
sistent character  can  be  ascribed  to  Him,  who  planted  this  fa- 
culty in  the  bosom  of  our  species,  and  bade  it  speak  so  uncer- 


ON    THE    SUPREMACY    OF    CONSCIENCE.  65 

tainly  and  so  variously.*  But  to  this  it  may  be  answered,  in 
the  first  place,  that  the  apparent  diversity  is  partly  reducible  into 
the  blinding,  or,  at  least,  the  distorting  effect  of  passion  and 
interest,  which  sometimes  are  powerful  enough  to  obscure  our 
perception,  even  of  mathematical  and  historical  truths,  as  well  as 
of  moral  distinctions  ;  and  without  therefore  affecting  the  sta- 
bility of  either.  It  is  thus,  for  example,  that  mercantile  cupidity 
has  blinded  many  a  reckless  adventurer  to  the  enormous  injus- 
tice of  the  slave  trade  ;  that  passion  and  interest  together  have 
transmuted  revenge  into  a  virtue  ;  and  that  the  robbery,  which, 
if  prosecuted  only  for  the  sake  of  individual  gain,  would  have 
appeared  to  all  under  an  aspect  of  most  revolting  selfishness, 
puts  on  the  guise  of  patriotism,  when  a  whole  nation  deliberates 
on  the  schemes,  or  is  led  by  a  career  of  daring  and  lofty  hero- 
ism, to  the  spoliations  of  conquest.  In  all  such  cases,  it  is  of 
capital  importance  to  distinguish  between  the  real  character  of 
any  criminal  action,  when  looked  to  calmly,  comprehensively,  and 
fully ;  and  what  that  is  in  the  action  which  the  perpetrator  singles 
out  and  fastens  upon  as  his  plea,  when  he  is  either  defending  it 
to  others,  or  reconciling  it  to  his  own  conscience.  In  as  far  as 
he  knows  the  deed  to  be  incapable  of  vindication,  and  yet  rushes 
on  the  performance  of  it,  there  is  but  delinquency  of  conduct 
incurred,  not  a  diversity  of  moral  judgment ;  nor  does  Con- 
science, in  this  case,  at  all  betray  any  caprice  or  uncertainty  in 
her  decisions.  It  is  but  the  conduct,  and  not  the  conscience 
which  is  in  fault ;  and  to  determine  whether  the  latter  is  in  aught 
chargeable  with  fluctuation,  we  must  look  not  to  the  man's  per- 
formance, but  to  his  plea.  Two  men  may  difter  as  to  the  moral 
character  of  an  action  ;  but  if  each  is  resting  the  support  of  his 
own  view  on  a  different  principle  from  the  other,  there  may  still 
be  a  perfect  uniformity  of  moral  sentiment  between  them.  They 
own  the  authority  of  the  same  laws  ;  ihey  only  disagree  in  the 
application  of  them.  In  the  first  place,  the  most  vehement  de- 
nouncer of  a  guilty  commerce  is  at  one  with  the  most  strenuous 
of  its  advocates,  on  the  duty  which  each  man  owes  to  his  family  ; 
and  again,  neither  of  them  would  venture  to  maintain  the  lawful- 
ness of  the  trade,  because  of  the  miseries  inflicted  by  it  on  those 

*  On  the  uniformity  of  our  moral  judgments,  we  would  refer  to  the  74th  and  75tli 
of  Dr.  Brown's  Lectures  on  the  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind.  "  If  we  hear  in 
mind"  says  Sir  .Tames  Mackintosh,  "  that  the  question  relates  to  the  coincidence  of 
all  men  in  considering  the  same  qualities  as  virtues,  and  not  to  the  preference  of  one 
class  of  vii-tues  by  some,  and  of  a  different  class  by  others,  the  exceptions  from  the 
agreement  of  manltind,  in  their  systems  of  practical  morality,  will  be  reduced  to  abso- 
lute insignificance  ;  and  we  shall  learn  to  view  them  as  no  more  affecting  die  harmony 
of  the  moral  faculties,  than  the  resemblance  of  the  limbs  and  features  is  affected  by 
monstrous  conformations,  or  by  the  unfortunate  effects  of  accident  and  disease  in  a 
very  few  individuals." 


66  ON    THE    SUPREMACY    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

wretched  sufferers  who  were  its  victims.  The  defender  of  this 
ruthless  and  rapacious  system  disowns  not,  in  sentiment  at  least, 
however  much  he  may  disown  in  practice,  the  obligations  of  jus- 
tice and  humanity — nay,  in  all  the  palliations  which  he  attempts 
of  the  enormity  in  question,  he  speaks  of  these  as  undoubted 
virtues,  and  renders  the  homage  of  his  moral  acknowledgments 
to  them  all.  In  the  sophistry  of  his  vindication,  the  principles 
of  the  ethical  system  are  left  untouched  and  entire.  He  meddles 
not  with  the  virtuousness  either  of  humanity  or  justice  ;  but  he 
tells  of  the  humanity  of  slavery,  and  the  justice  of  slavery.  It 
is  true,  that  he  heeds  not  the  representations  which  are  given  of 
the  atrocities  of  his  trade — that  he  does  not  attend  because  he 
wills  not  to  attend;  and  in  this  there  is  practical  unfairness. 
Still  it  but  resolves  itself  into  perversity  of  conduct,  and  not  into 
perversity  of  sentiment.  The  very  dread  and  dislike  he  has  for 
the  informations  of  the  subject,  are  symptoms  of  a  feeling  that 
his  conscience  cannot  be  trusted  with  the  question ;  or,  in  other 
words,  prove  him  to  be  possessed  of  a  conscience  M'hich  is  just 
like  that  of  other  men.  The  partialities  of  interest  and  feeling 
may  give  rise  to  an  infinite  diversity  of  moral  judgments  in  our 
estimate  of  actions;  while  there  may  be  the  most  perfect  uni- 
formity and  stability  of  judgment  in  our  estimate  of  principles  : 
and,  on  all  the  great  generalities  of  the  ethical  code.  Conscience 
may  speak  the  same  language,  and  own  one  and  the  same  moral 
directory  all  the  world  over. 

I'en  consciences  then  pronounce  differently  of  the  same 
action,  it  is  for  the  most  part,  or  rather,  it  is  almost  always,  be- 
cause understandings  view  it  differently.  It  is  either  because 
the  controversialists  are  regarding  it  with  unequal  degrees  of 
knowledge  ;  or,  each,  through  the  medium  of  his  own  partiali- 
ties. The  consciencies  of  all  would  come  forth  with  the  same 
moral  decision,  were  all  equally  enlightened  in  the  circumstan- 
ces, or  in  the  essential  relations  and  consequences  of  the  deed 
in  question  ;  and,  what  is  just  as  essential  to  this  uniformity  of 
judgment,  were  all  viewing  it  fairly  as  well  as  fully.  It  matters 
not,  whether  it  be  ignorantly  or  wilfully,  that  each  is  looking  at 
this  deed,  but  in  the  one  aspect,  or  in  the  one  relation  that  is 
favourable  to  his  own  pecuUar  sentiment.  In  either  case,  the 
diversity  of  judgment  on  the  moral  qualities  of  the  same  action, 
is  just  as  little  to  be  wondered  at  as  a  similar  diversity  on  the 
material  qualities  of  the  same  object — should  any  of  the  spec- 
tators labour  under  an  involuntary  defect  of  vision,  or  volunta- 
rily persist  either  in  shutting  or  in  averting  his  eyes.  It  is  thus 
that  a  quarrel  has  well  been  termed  a  misunderstanding,  in  which 
each  of  the  combatants  may  consider,  and  often  honestly  con- 


ON    THE    SUPREMACY   OP    CONSCIENCE.  57 

sider,  himself  to  be  in  the  right ;  and  that,  on  reading  the  hostile 
memorials  of  two  parties  in  a  litigation,  we  can  perceive  no  diffe- 
rence in  their  moral  principles,  but  only  in  their  historical  state- 
ments ;  and  that,  in  the  public  manifestoes  of  nations  when  en- 
tering upon  war,  we  can  discover  no  trace  of  a  contrariety  of 
conflict  in  their  ethical  systems,  but  only  in  their  differently  put 
or  differently  coloured  representations  of  fact ;  all  proving,  that, 
with  the  utmost  diversity  of  judgment  among  men  respecting 
the  moral  qualities  of  the  same  thing,  there  may  be  a  perfect 
identity  of  structure  in  their  moral  organs  notwithstanding  ;  and 
that  Conscience,  true  to  her  office,  needs  but  to  be  rightly  in- 
formed, that  she  may  speak  the  same  language,  and  give  forth 
the  same  lessons  in  all  the  countries  of  the  earth. 

16.  It  is  this  which  explains  the  moral  peculiarities  of  different 
nations.  It  is  not  that  justice,  humanity,  and  gratitude  are  not 
the  canonized  virtues  of  every  region  ;  or  that  falsehood,  cruelty, 
and  fraud  would  not,  in  their  abstract  and  unassociated  naked- 
ness, be  viewed  as  the  objects  of  moral  antipathy  and  rebuke. 
It  is,  that,  in  one  and  the  same  material  action,  when  looked  to 
in  all  the  lights  of  which,  whether  in  reality  or  by  the  power  of 
imagination,  it  is  susceptible,  various,  nay,  opposite  moral  cha- 
racteristics may  be  blended  ;  and  that  while  one  people  look  to 
the  good  only  without  the  evil,  another  may  look  to  the  evil  only 
without  the  good.  And  thus  the  identical  acts  which  in  one 
nation  are  the  subjects  of  a  most  reverent  and  religious  obser- 
vance, may,  in  another  be  regarded  with  a  shuddering  sense  of 
abomination  and  horror.  And  this,  not  because  of  any  difference 
in  what  may  be  termed  the  moral  categories  of  the  two  people, 
nor  because,  if  moral  principles  in  their  unmixed  generality  were 
offered  to  the  contemplation  of  either,  either  would  call  evil  good 
or  good  evil.  When  theft  was  publicly  honoured  and  rewarded 
in  Sparta,  it  was  not  because  theft  in  itself  was  reckoned  a  good 
thing  ;  but  because  patriotism,  and  dexterity,  and  those  services 
by  which  the  interests  of  patriotism  might  be  supported,  were 
reckoned  to  be  good  tilings.  When  the  natives  of  Hindostan 
assemble  with  delight  around  the  agonies  of  a  human  sacrifice, 
it  is  not  because  they  hold  it  good  to  rejoice  in  a  spectacle  of 
pain  ;  but  because  they  hold  it  good  to  rejoice  in  a  spectacle 
of  heroic  devotion  to  the  memory  of  the  dead.  When  parents 
are  exposed,  or  children  are  destroyed,  it  is  not  because  it  is 
deemed  to  be  right  that  there  should  be  the  infliction  of  misery 
for  its  own  sake  ;  but  because  it  is  deemed  to' be  right  that  the 
wretchedness  of  old  age  should  be  curtailed,  or  that  the  world 
should  be  saved  from  the  miseries  of  an  over-crowded  species. 
In  a  word,  in  the  very  worst  of  these  anomalies,  some  form  of 


58  ON    THE    SUPREMACY    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

good  may  be  detected,  which  has  led  to  their  estabhshnient ;  and 
still,  some  universal  and  undoubted  principle  of  morality,  how- 
ever perverted  or  misapplied,  can  be  alleged  in  vindication  of 
them.  A  people  may  be  deluded  by  their  ignorance  ;  or  mis- 
guided by  their  superstition ;  or,  not  only  hurried  into  wrong 
deeds,  but  even  fostered  into  wrong  sentiments,  under  the  influ- 
ences of  that  cupidity  or  revenge,  which  are  so  perpetually  ope- 
rating in  the  warfare  of  savage  or  demisavage  nations.  Yet,  in 
spite  of  all  the  topical  moralities  to  which  these  have  given  birth, 
there  is  an  unquestioned  and  universal  morality  notwithstanding. 
And  in  every  case,  where  the  moral  sense  is  unfettered  by  these 
associations  ;  and  the  judgment  is  uncramped,  either  by  the  par- 
tialities of  interest  or  by  the  inveteracy  of  national  customs  which 
habit  and  antiquity  have  rendered  sacred — ^Conscience  is  found 
to  speak  the  same  language,  nor,  to  the  remotest  ends  of  the 
world,  is  there  a  country  or  an  island,  where  the  same  uniform 
and  consistent  voice  is  not  heard  from  her.  Let  the  mists  of 
ignorance  and  passion  and  artificial  education  be  only  cleared 
away  ;  and  the  moral  attributes  of  goodness  and  righteousness 
and  truth  be  seen  undistorted,  and  in  their  own  proper  guise  ; 
and  there  is  not  a  heart  or  a  conscience  throughout  earth's  teem- 
ing population,  which  could  refuse  to  do  them  homage.  And  it 
is  precisely  because  the  Father  of  the  human  family  has  given 
such  hearts  and  conscience,  to  all  his  children,  that  we  infer 
these  to  be  the  very  sanctities  of  the  Godhead,  the  very  attri- 
butes of  his  own  primeval  nature. 

17.  There  is  a  countless  diversity  of  tastes  in  the  world,  be- 
cause of  the  infinitely  various  circumstances  and  associations 
of  men.  Yet  is  there  a  stable  and  correct  standard  of  taste  not- 
withstanding, to  which  all  minds,  that  have  the  benefit  of  culture 
and  enlargement,  are  gradually  assimilating  and  approximating. 
It  holds  far  more  emphatically  true,  that  in  spite  of  the  diversity 
of  moral  judgments,  which  are  vastly  less  wide  and  numerous 
than  the  former,  there  is  a  fixed  standard  of  morals,  rallying 
around  itself  all  consciences,  to  the  greater  principles  of  which, 
a  full  and  unanimous  homage  is  rendered  from  every  quarter  of 
the  globe  ;  and  even  to  the  lesser  principles  and  modifications 
of  which,  there  is  a  growing  and  gathering  consent,  with  every 
onward  step  in  the  progress  of  light  and  civilization.  In  propor- 
tion as  the  understandings  of  men  become  more  enlightened,  do 
their  consciences  become  more  accordant  with  each  other. 
Even  now  there  is  not  a  single  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth, 
among  whom  barbarity  and  licentiousness  and  fraud  are  deified 
as  virtues, — where  it  does  not  require  the  utmost  strength,  whe- 
ther of  superstition  or  of  patriotism  in  its  most  selfish  and  con- 


ON    THE    SUPREMACY   OP    CONSCIENCE.  59 

tracted  form,  to  uphold  the  delusion.  Apart  from  these  local 
and,  we  venture  to  hope,  these  temporary  exceptions,  the  same 
moralities  are  recognized  and  honoured  ;  and,  however  prevalent 
in  practice,  in  sentiment  at  least,  the  same  vices  are  disowned 
and  execrated  all  the  world  over.  In  proportion  as  superstition 
is  dissipated,  and  prejudice  is  gradually  weakened  by  the  larger 
intercourse  of  nations,  these  moral  peculiarities  do  evidently  wear 
away  ;  till  at  length,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  obvious  tendency 
of  things,  conscience  will,  in  the  full  manhood  of  our  species, 
assert  the  universality  and  the  unchangeableness  of  her  decisions. 
There  is  no  speech  nor  language,  where  her  voice  is  not  heard  ; 
her  line  is  gone  out  through  all  the  earth ;  and  her  words  to  the 
ends  of  the  world. 

18.  On  the  whole,  then,  conscience,  whether  it  be  an  original 
or  a  derived  faculty,  yet  as  founded  on  human  nature,  if  not 
forming  a  constituent  part  of  it,  may  be  regarded  as  a  faithful 
witness  for  God  the  author  of  that  nature,  and  as  rendering  to 
his  character  a  consistent  testimony.  It  is  not  necessary,  for 
the  establishment  of  our  particular  lesson,  that  we  should  turn 
that  which  is  clear  into  that  which  is  controversial  by  our  enter- 
ing into  the  scientific  question  respecting  the  physical  origin  of 
conscience,  or  tracing  the  imagined  pedigree  of  its  descent  from 
simpler  or  anterior  principles  in  the  constitution  of  man.  For, 
as  has  been  well  remarked  by  Sir  James  Mackintosh — "  If  con- 
science be  inherent,  that  circumstance  is,  according  to  the  com- 
mon mode  of  thinking,  a  sufficient  proof  of  its  title  to  veneration. 
But  if  provision  be  made,  in  the  constitution  and  circumstances 
of  all  men  for  uniformity,  producing  it  by  processes  similar  to  those 
which  produce  other  acquired  sentiments,  may  not  our  reverence 
be  augmented  by  admiration  of  that  supreme  wisdom,  which,  in 
such  mental  contrivances,  yet  more  highly  than  in  the  lower 
world  of  matter,  accomplish  mighty  purposes  by  instruments  so 
simple  ?"  It  is  not  therefore  the  physical  origin,  but  the  fact,  of 
the  uniformity  of  conscience,  wherewith  is  concerned  the  theo- 
logical inference  that  we  attempt  to  draw  from  it.  This  as- 
cendant faculty  of  our  nature,  which  has  been  so  often  termed 
the  divinity  within  us,  notwithstanding  the  occasional  sophistry 
of  the  passions,  is  on  the  whole,  representative  of  the  Divinity 
above  us  ;  and  the  righteousness  and  goodness  and  truth,  the 
lessons  of  which  it  gives  forth  every  where,  may  well  be  re- 
garded, both  as  the  laws  which  enter  into  the  juridical  constitu- 
tion, and  as  the  attributes  which  enter  into  the  moral  character 
ofGod.,.^ 

19.  We  admit  a  considerable  diversity  of  moral  observation 
in  the  various  countries  of  the  earth,  but  without  admitting  any 


^0  ON    THE    SUPREMACY    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

correspondent  diversity  of  moral  sentiment  between  them.  When 
human  sacrifices  are  enforced  and  applauded  in  one  nation — this 
is  not  because  of  their  cruelty,  but  notwithstanding  of  their  cru- 
elty. Even  there,  the  universal  principle  of  humanity  would  be 
acknowledged,  that  it  were  wrong  to  inflict  a  wanton  and  un- 
called for  agony  on  any  of  our  fellows — but  there  is  a  local 
superstition  which  counteracts  the  universal  principle,  and  over- 
bears it.  When  in  the  republic  of  Sparta,  theft,  instead  of  being 
execrated  as  a  critne,  was  dignified  into  an  art  and  an  accom- 
pUshment,  and  on  that  footing  admitted  into  the  system  of  their 
youthful  education — it  was  not  because  of  its  infringement  on 
the  rights  of  property,  but  notwithstanding  of  that  infringement, 
and  only  because  a  local  patriotism  made  head  against  the  uni- 
versal principle,  and^prgxajLaiover  it.  Apart  from  such  disturb- 
ing forces  as  these,  ^t  will  be  found  that  the  sentiments  of  men 
;  gravitSte'  to\vards  one  and  the  same  standard  all  over  the  globe  ; 
I  and  that,  when  once  the  obscurations  of  superstition  and  selfish- 
\  ness  are  dissipated,  there  will  be  found  the  same  moral  light  in 
1  every  mind,  a  recognition  of  the  same  moral  law,  as  the  immu- 
/  table  and  eternal  code  of  righteousness  for  all  countries  and  all 
(ages.  \  The  following  is  the  noble  testimony  of  a  heathen,  who 
tells  us  with  equal  eloquence  and  truth,  that,  even  amid  all  the 
perversities  of  a  vitiated  and  endlessly  diversified  creed,  con- 
science sat  mistress  over  the  whole  earth,  and  asserted  the  su- 
premacy of  her  own  unalterable  obligations.  "  Est  quidem  vera 
lex,  recta  ratio,  naturae  congruens,  diffusa  in  omnes,  constans, 
sempiterna,  quae  vocet  ad  officium  jubendo,  vetando  a  fraude  de- 
terreat ;  quae  tamen  neque  probos  frustra  jubet  aut  vetat,  nee 
■  improbos  jubendo  aut  vetando  mo  vet.  Huic  legi  nee  obrogari 
fas  est,  neque  derogari  ex  hac  aliquid  licet,  neque  tota  abrogari 
potest.  Nee  vero,  aut  per  senatum  aut  per  populum  solvi  hac 
lege  possumus.  Neque  est  quaerendus  explanator  aut  interpres 
ejus  alius.  Nee  erit  alia  lex  Romas,  alia  Athenis,  alia  nunc, 
alia  posthac  ;  sed  et  omnes  gentes,  et  omni  tempore,  una  lex  et 
sempiterna  et  immortalis  continebit ;  unusque  erit  communis 
quasi  magister,  et  imperator  omnium  Deus  ille,  legis  hujus  in- 
ventor, disceptator,  lator  ;  cui  qui  non  parebit,  ipse  se  fugiet,  ac 
naturum  hominus  aspernabitur,  atque  hoc  ipso  luet  maximas 
)oeiias»_£tiam  si  csetera  supplicia  quae  putantur  effiigerit." 

20.  Such  then  is  our  first  argument  for  the  moral  character  of 
God — even  the  moral  character  of  the  law  of  conscience  ;  that 
conscience  which  He  hath  inserted  among  the  faculties  of  our 
nature  ;  and  armed  with  the  felt  authority  of  a  master  ;  and  fur- 
nished with  sanctions  for  the  enforcement  of  its  dictates  ;  and  so 
framed,  that,  apart  from  local  perversities  of  the  understanding 


ON    THE    SUPREMACY    OF    CONSCIENCE.  61 

or  the  habits,  all  its  decisions  are  on  the  side  of  righteousness. 

"The  inference  is  neither  a  distant  nor  an  obscure  one,  from  the" 
character  of  such  a  law  to  the  character  of  its  law-giver.  Nei- 
ther is  it 'an  inference,  destroyed  by  the  insurrection  which  has 
taken  place  on  the  part  of  our  lower  faculties,  or  by  the  actual 
prevalence  of  vice  in  the  world.  For  this  has  only  enabled  con- 
science to  come  forth  with  another  and  additional  demonstration 
of  its  sovereignty — just  as  the  punishment  of  crime  in  society 
bears  evidence  to  the  justice  of  the  government  which  is  esta- 
blished there.  In  general,  the  inward  complacency  felt  by  the 
virtuous,  does  not  so  impressively  bespeak  the  real  purpose  and 
character  of  this  the  ruling  faculty  in  man,  as  do  the  remorse,  and 
the  terror,  and  the  bitter  dissatisfaction,  wherewith  the  hearts  of 
the  wicked  are  exercised.  It  is  true,  that,  by  every  act  of  iniqui- 
ty, outrage  is  done  to  the  law  of  conscience  ;  but  there  is  a  felt 
reaction  within  which  tells  that  the  outrage  is  resented  ;  and 
then  it  is,  that  conscience  makes  most  emphatic  assertion  of  its 
high  prerogative,  when,  instead  of  coming  forth  as  the  benign 
and  generous  dispenser  of  its  rewards  to  the  obedient,  it  comes 
forth  like  an  offended  monarch  in  the  character  of  an  avenger. 
Were  we  endowed  with  prophetic  vision,  so  as  to  behold,  among 
the  yet  undisclosed  secrets  of  futurity,  the  spectacle  of  a  judge, 

,  and  a  judgment-seat,  and  an  assembled  world,  and  the  retribu- 
tions of  pleasure  and  pain  to  the  good  and  to  the  evil ;  this  were 
fetching  from  afar  an  argument  for  the  righteousness  of  God. 
But  the  instant  pleasure  and  the  instant  pain  wherewith  con- 
science follows  up  the  doings  of  man,  brings  this  very  argument 
within  the  limits  of  actual  observation.  Only,  instead  of  being 
manifested  by  the  light  of  a  preternatural  revelation,  it  is  sug- 
gested to  us  by  one  of  the  most  familiar  certainties  of  experience, 
for  in  these  phenomena  and  feelings  of  our  own  moral  nature,  do 
we  behold  not  only  a  present  judgment,  but  a  present  execution 

of  the  sentence. 


62  PLEASURE  OF  VIRTUOUS,  AND 


CHAPTER  II. 

SECOND     GENERAL     ARGUMENT. 

On  the  inherent  Pleasure  of  the    Virtuous,  and  JMisery  of  the 

Vicious  Jiffeclions. 

1.  We  are  often  told  by  moralists,  that  there  is  a  native  and  es- 
sential happiness  in  moral  worth  ;  and  a  like  native  and  essential 
wretchedness  in  moral  depravity — insomuch  that  the  one  may 
be  regarded  as  its  own  reward,  and  the  other  as  its  own  punish- 
ment. We  do  not  always  recollect  that  this  happiness  on  the 
one  hand,  and  this  misery  on  the  other,  are  each  of  them  made 
up,  severally  of  distinct  ingredients  ;  and  that  thus,  by  mental 
analysis,  we  might  strengthen  our  argument  both  for  the  being 
and  the  character  of  God.  When  we  discover,  that,  into  this 
alleged  happiness  of  the  good  there  enter  more  enjoyments  than 
one,  we,  thereby  obtain  two  or  more  testimonies  of  the  divine 
regard  for  virtue  ;  and  the  proof  is  enhanced  in  the  same  peculiar 
way,  that  the  evidence  of  design  is,  in  any  other  department  of 
creation,  when  we  perceive  the  concurrence  of  so  many  separate 
and  independent  elements,  which  meet  together  for  the  produc- 
tion of  some  complex  and  beneficial  result.* 

2.  We  have  already  spoken  of  one  such  ingredient.  There 
is  a  felt  satisfaction  in  the  thought  of  having  done  what  we  know 
to  be  right ;  and,  in  counterpart  to  this  complacency  of  self-ap- 
probation, there  is  a  felt  discomfort,  amounting  often  to  bitter 
and  remorseful  agony,  in  the  thought  of  having  done  what  con- 
science tells  us  to  be  wrong.  This  implies  a  sense  of  the  rec- 
titude of  what  is  virtuous.  But  without  thinking  of  its  rectitude 
at  all,  without  viewing  it  in  reference  either  to  the  law  of  con- 
science or  to  the  law  of  God,  with  no  regard  to  jurisprudence  in 
the  matter — there  is,  in  the  virtuous  affection  itself,  another  and  a 
distinct  enjoyment.  We  ought  to  cherish  and  to  exercise  bene- 
volence ;  and  there  is  a  pleasure  in  the  consciousness  of  doing 
what  we  ought :  but  beside  this  moral  sentiment,  and  beside  the  pe- 
culiar pleasure  appended  to  benevolence  as  moral,  there  is  a  sen- 
sation in  the  merely  physical  affection  of  benevolence  ;  and  that 
sensation  of  itself,  is  in  the  highest  degree  pleasurable.  The 
primary  or  instant  gratification  which  there  is  in  the  direct  and 

♦See  Chap,  1. 6. 


MISERY    OF    VICIOUS    AFFECTIONS.  63 

immediate  feeling  of  benevolence  is  one  thing  :   the  secondary  or 
reflex  gratification  which  there  is  in  the  consciousness  of  bene- 
volence as  moral  is  another  thing.    The  two  are  distinct  of  them- 
selves ;   but  the  contingent  union  of  them,  in  the  case  of  every 
virtuous  affection,  gives  a  multiple  force  to  the  conclusion,  that 
God  is  the  lover,  and,  because  so,  the  patron  or  the  rewarder  of 
virtue.     He  hath  so  constituted  our  nature,  that  in  the  very  flow 
and  exercise  of  the  good  affections,  there  shall  be  the  oil  of  glad- 
ness.    There  is  instant  dehght  in  the  first  conception  of  benevo- 
lence.    There  is   sustained  delight  in  its  continued  exercise. 
There  is  consummated  delight  in  the  happy  smiling  and  prosper- 
ous result  of  it.      Kindness,  and  honesty,  and  truth,  are,  of  them- 
selves, and  irrespective  of  their  rightness,  sweet  unto  the  taste 
of  the  inner  man.     Malice,  envy,  falsehood,  injustice,  irrespec- 
tive of  their  wrongness,  have  of  themselves,  the  bitterness  of  gall 
and  wormwood.     The  Deity  hath  annexed  a  high  mental  enjoy- 
ment, not  to  the  consciousness  only  of  good  affections,  but  to  the 
very  sense   and  feeling  of  good  affections.      However  closely 
these  may  follow  on  each  other — nay,  however  implicated  or 
blended  together  they  may  be  at  the  same  moment  into  one  com- 
pound state  of  feeling  ;  they  are  not  the  less  distinct  on  that  ac- 
count, of  themselves.     They  form  two  pleasurable  sensations, 
instead  of  one  ;  and  their  apposition,  in  the  case  of  every  virtu- 
ous deed  or  virtuous  desire,  exhibits  to  us  that  very  concurrence 
in  the  world  of  mind,  which  obtains  with  such  frequency  and  ful- 
ness in  the  world  of  matter — affording,  in  every  new   part  that 
is  added,  not  a  simply  repeated  only,  but  a  vastly  multiplied  evi- 
dence for  design,  throughout  all  its  combinations.      There  is  a 
pleasure   in  the  very  sensation    of  virtue  ;   and  there  is  a  plea- 
sure attendant  on  the  sense  of  its  rectitude.     These  two  pheno- 
mena are  independent  of  each  other.   Let  there  be  a  certain  num- 
ber of  chances  against  the  first  in  a  random  economy  of  things, 
and  also  a  certain   number  of  chances  against  the  second.     In 
the  actual  economy  of  things,  where  there  is  the  conjunction  of 
both  phenomena — it  is  the  product  of  these  two  numbers  which 
represents  the  amount  of  evidence  afforded  by  them,  for  a  mo- 
ral government  in  the  world,  and  a  moral  Governor  over  them. 
3.   In  the  calm  satisfactions  of  virtue,  this  distinction  may  not 
be  so  palpable,  as   in  the  pungent  and  more  vividly  felt  disqui- 
etudes which  are  attendant  on  the  wrons  affections  of  our  nature. 
The  perpetual  corrosion  of  that  heart,  for  example,  which  frets 
in  unhappy  peevishsness  all  the  day  long,  is  plainly  distinct  from 
the  bitterness   of  that  remorse  which  is  felt,  in  the  recollection 
of  its  harsh  and  injurious  outbreakings  on  the  innocent  sufferers 
within  its  reach.     It  is  saying  much  for  the  moral  character  of 


64  PLEASURE    OF    VIRTUOUS,    AND 

God,  that  he  has  placed  a  conscience  within  us,  which  adminis- 
ters painful  rebuke  on  every  indulgence  of  a  wrong  affection. 
But  it  is  saying  still  more  for  such  being  the  character  of  our 
Maker — so  to  have  framed  our  mental  constitution,  that  in  the 
very  working  of  these  bad  affections  there  should  be  the  pain- 
fulness  of  a  felt  discomfort  and  discordancy.  Such  is  the  make 
or  mechanism  of  our  nature,  that  it  is  thwarted  and  put  out  of 
sorts,  by  rage  and  envy,  and  hatred  ;  and  this,  irrespective  of 
the  adverse  moral  judgments  which  conscience  passes  upon 
them.  Of  themselves,  they  are  unsavoury  ;  and  no  sooner  do 
they  enter  the  heart,  than  they  shed  upon  it  an  immediate  distil- 
lation of  bitterness.  Just  as  the  placid  smile  of  benevolence 
bespeaks  the  felt  comfort  of  benevolence  ;  so,  in  the  frown  and 
tempest  of  an  angry  countenance,  do  we  read  the  unhappiness 
of  that  man  who  is  vexed  and  agitated  by  his  own  malignant  af- 
fections— eating  inwardly  as  they  do  on  the  vitals  of  his  enjoy- 
ment. It  is,  therefore,  that  he  is  often  styled,  and  truly,  a  self- 
tormentor  ;  or,  his  own  worst  enemy.  The  delight  of  virtue 
in  itself,  is  a  separate  thing  from  the  delight  of  the  conscience 
which  approves  it.  And  the  pain  of  moral  evil  in  itself,  is  a  sepa- 
rate thing  from  the  pain  inflicted  by  conscience  in  the  act  of 
condemning  it.  They  offer  to  our  notice  two  distinct  ingredi- 
ents, both  of  the  present  reward  attendant  upon  virtue,  and  of 
the  present  penalty  attendant  upon  vice  ;  and  so,  enhance  the 
evidence  that  is  before  our  eyes,  for  the  moral  character  of  that 
administration,  under  which  the  world  has  been  placed  by  its  au- 
thor. The  appetite  of  hunger  is  rightly  alleged,  in  evidence  of 
the  care,  wherewith  the  Deity  hath  provided  for  the  v.  ell-being  of 
our  natural  constitution  ;  and  the  pleasurable  taste  of  food  is 
rightly  alleged  as  an  additional  proof  of  the  same.  And  so,  if 
the  urgent  voice  of  conscience  within,  calling  us  to  virtue,  be  al- 
leged in  evidence  of  the  care,  wherewith  the  Deity  hath  provided 
for  the  well-being  of  our  moral  constitution  ;  the  pleasurable 
taste  of  virtue  in  itself,  with  the  bitterness  of  its  opposite,  may 
well  be  alleged  as  additional  evidence  thereof.  They  alike  af- 
ford the  present  and  the  sensible  tokens  of  a  righteous  adminis- 
tration, and  so  of  a  righteous  God. 

4.  Our  present  argument  is  grounded,  neither  on  the  recti- 
titude  of  virtue,  nor  on  its  utihty  in  the  grosser  and  more  palpa- 
ble sense  of  that  term — but  on  the  immediate  sweetness  of  it. 
It  is  the  office  of  conscience  to  tell  us  of  its  rectitude.  It  is  by 
experience  that  we  learn  its  utility.  But  the  sweetness  of  it — 
the  dulce  of  virtue,  as  disthiguished  from  its  utile,  is  a  thing  of 
instant  sensation.  It  may  be  decomposed  into  two  ingredients, 
with  one  of  which  conscience  has  to  do — even  the  pleasure  we 


1 


MrSERV    OF    VICIOUS    A^TECTIONS.  65 

have,  when  any  deed  or  any  affection  of  ours  receives  from  her 
a  favourable   verdict.     But    it    has   another  ingredient   which 
forms   the  proper   and  the  distinct  argument  that  wc  are  now 
urging — even  the  pleasure  we  have  in  the  mere  rehsh  of  the 
affection  itself.     If  it  be  a  proof  of  benevolence  in  God,  that  our 
external  organs  of  taste  should  have  been  so  framed,  as  to  have 
a  liking  for  wholesome  food ;  it  is   no  less  the  proof  both  of  n 
benevolent  and  a  righteous  God,  so  to  have  framed  our  mental 
economy,  as  that  right  and  wholesome  morality  should  be  pala- 
table to  the  taste  of  the  inner  man.     Virtue  is  not  only  seen  to 
be  right — it  is  felt  to  be  delicious.   There  is  hap[)iness  in  the  very 
wish  to  make  others  happy.   There  is  a  heart's  ease,  or  a  heart's 
enjoyment,  even  in  the  first  purposes  of  kindness,  as  well  as  in  i(s 
subsequent  performances.   There  is  a  certain  rejoicing  sense  of 
clearness  in  the  consistency,  the  exactitude  of  justice  and  truth. 
There  is  a  triumphant  elevation  of  spirit  in  magnanimity  and 
honour.     In  perfect  harmony  with  this,  there  is  a  placid  feeling 
of  serenity  and  blissful  contentment  in  gentleness  and  humility. 
There  is  a  noble  satisfaction  in  those  victories,  which,  at  the 
bidding  of  principle,  or  by  the  power  of  self-command,  may 
have  been  achieved   over    the  propensities  of   animal  nature. 
There  is  an  elate  independence  of  soul,  in  the  consciousness  of 
having  nothing  to  hide,  and  nothing  to  be   ashamed  of.     In  a 
word,  by  the  constitution  of  our  nature,  each  virtue  has  its  ap- 
propriate charm  ;   and  virtue,  on  the  whole,  is  a  fund  of  varied, 
as  well  as  of  perpetual  enjoyment,  to   him  who  hath  imbibed  its 
spirit,  and  is  under  the  guidance  of  its  principles.     He  feels  all 
to  be  health  and  harmony  within  ;   and  without  he    seems  as  if 
to  breathe  in  an  atmosphere  of  beauteous  transparency — .proving 
how  much  the   nature  of  man  and  the  nature   of  virtue  are  in 
unison  with  each  other.     It  is  hunger  which  urges  to  the  use  of 
food  ;   but  it  strikingly  demonstrates  the  care  and  benevolence 
of  God,  so  to  have  framed  the  organ  of  taste,  as  that  there  shall 
be  a  superadded  enjoyment  in  the  use  of  it.     It  is  conscience 
which  urges  to  the  practice  of  virtue  ;  but  it  serves  to  enhance 
the  proof  of  a  moral  purpose,  and  therefore  of  a  moral  character 
in  God,  so   to  have   framed  our  mental  economy,  that,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  felt  obligation  of  its  rightness,  virtue  should  of  itself, 
be  so  regaling  to  the  taste  of  the  inner  man. 

5.  In  counterpart  to  these  sweets  and  satisfactions  of  virtue, 
is  the  essential  and  inherent  bitterness  of  all  that  is  morally  evil. 
We  repeat,  that,  with  this  particular,  argument,  we  do  not  mix 
up  the  agonies  of  remorse.  It  is  the  wretchedness  of  vice 
in  itself,  not   the  wretchedness  which  we  suffer  because   of  its 

recollected  and  felt  wrongness  that  we  now  speak  of.     It  is  not 
6* 


66       ,       PLEASURE  OF  VIRTUOUS,  AND 

the  painfulness  of  the  compunction  felt  because  of  our  angei', 
upon  wliich  we  at  this  moment  insist ;  but  the  painfulness  of 
the  emotion  itself;  and  the  same  remark  applies  to  all  the  malig- 
nant desires  of  the  human  heart.  True,  it  is  inseparable  from 
the  very  nature  of  a  desire,  that  there  must  be  some  enjoyment 
or  other,  at  the  time  of  its  gratification  ;  but,  in  the  case  of 
these  evil  affections,  it  is  not  unmixed  enjoyment.  The  most 
ordinary  observer  of  his  own  feelings,  however  incapable  of  an- 
alysis, must  be  sensible,  even  at  the  moment  of  wreaking,  in 
full  indulgence  of  his  resentment,  on  the  man  who  has  provoked 
or  injured  him,  that  all  is  not  perfect  and  entire  enjoyment 
within ;  but  that,  in  this,  and  indeed  in  every  other  malignant 
feeling,  there  is  a  sore  burden  of  disquietude — an  mihappiness 
tumultuating  in  the  heart,  and  visibly  pictured  on  the  counte- 
nance. The  ferocious  tyrant  who  has  only  to  issue  forth  his 
mandate,  and  strike  dead  at  pleasure  the  victim  of  his  wrath, 
with  any  circumstance  too  of  harbaric  caprice  and  cruelty, 
which  his  fancy  in  the  very  waywardness  of  passion  unrestrained 
and  power  unbounded  might  suggest  to  him — he  may  be  said  to 
have  experienced  through  life  a  thousand  gratifications,  in  the 
solaced  rage  and  revenge,  which,  though  ever  breaking  forth  on 
some  new  subject,  he  can  appease  again  every  day  of  his  hfe  by 
some  new  execution.  But  we  mistake  it  if  we  think  otherwise  than 
that,  in  spite  of  these  distinct  and  very  numerous  nay  daily  grati- 
fications if  he  so  choose,  it  is  not  a  life  of  fierce  internal  agony 
notwithstanding.  It  seems  indispensable  to  the  nature  of  every 
desire,  and  to  form  part  indeed  of  its  very  idea,  that  there  should 
be  a  distinctly  felt  pleasure,  or  at  least,  a  removal  at  the  time  of  a 
distinctly  felt  pain,  in  the  act  of  its  fulfilment. — yet,  whatever  re- 
creation or  rehef  may  have  thus  been  rendered,  v.ithout  doing 
away  the  misery  often  in  the  whole  amount  of  it  the  intense 
misery,  inflicted  upon  man  by  the  evil  propensities  of  his  nature. 
Who  can  doubt  for  example  the  unhappiness  of  the  habitual  drunk- 
ard? and  that,  although  the  ravenous  appetite,  by  which  he  is 
driven  along  a  stormy  career,  meets  every  day,  almost  every 
hour  of  the  day,  with  the  gratification  that  is  suited  to  it.  The 
same  may  be  equally  affirmed  of  the  volv.ptuary,  or  of  the  depre- 
dator, or  of  the  extortioner,  or  of  the  liar.  Each  may  succeed  in 
the  attainment  of  his  specific  object ;  and  we  cannot  possibly  dis- 
join from  the  conception  of  success  the  conception  of  some  sort 
of  pleasure — yet  in  perfect  consistency,  we  affirm,  with  a  sad  and 
hea.vy  burthen  of  unpleasantness  or  unhappiness  on  the  whole. 
He  is  little  conversant  with  our  nature  who  does  not  know  of 
many  a  passion  belonging  to  it,  that  it  may  be  the  instrument  of 
many  pleasurable,  nay  delicious  or  exquisite  sensations,  and 


MISERY    OF    VICIOUS    AFFECTIONS.  67 

yet  be  a  wretched  passion  still ;  the  domineering  tyrant  of  a 
bondsman,  who  at  once  knows  himself  to  be  degraded,  and 
feels  himself  to  be  unhappy.  A  sense  of  guilt  is  one  main  in- 
gredient of  this  misery — yet  physically^  and  notwithstanding  the 
pleasure  or  the  relief  inseparable  at  the  moment  from  every  in- 
dulgence of  the  passions,  there  are  other  sensations  of  bitter- 
ness, which  of  themselves,  and  apart  from  remorse,  would  cause 
the  suffering  to  preponderate. 

6.  There  is  an  important  discrimination  made  by  Bishop  Butler 
in  his  sermons  ;  and,  by  the  help  of  which,  this  phenomenon,  of 
apparent  contradiction  or  mystery  in  our  nature,  may  be  satisfac- 
torily explained.  He  distinguishes  between  the  final  object  of  any 
of  our  desires,  and  the  pleasure  attendant  on  or  rather  inseparable 
from  its  gratification.  The  object  is  not  the  pleasure,  though 
the  pleasure  be  an  unfailing  and  essential  accompaniment  on  the 
attainment  of  the  object.  This  is  well  illustrated  by  the  appe- 
tite of  hunger,  of  which  it  were  more  proper  to  say  that  it  seeks  for 
food,  than  that  it  seeks  for  the  pleasure  which  there  is  in  eating 
(he  food.  The  food  is  the  object ;  the  pleasure  is  the  accom- 
paniment. We  do  not  here  speak  of  the  distinct  and  secondary 
pleasure  which  there  is  in  the  taste  of  food,  but  of  that  other 
pleasure  which  strictly  and  properly  attaches  to  the  gratification 
of  the  appetite  of  hunger.  This  is  the  pleasure,  or  relief,  which 
accompanies  the  act  of  eating  ;  while  the  ultimate  object,  the 
object  in  Avhich  the  appetite  rests  and  terminates,  is  the  food 
itself.  The  same  is  true  of  all  our  special  affections.  Each 
has  a  proper  and  peculiar  o])ject  of  its  own,  and  the  mere  plea- 
sure attendant  on  the  prosecution  or  the  indulgence  of  the  affec- 
tion is  not,  as  has  been  clearly  established  by  Butler  and  fully 
reasserted  by  Dr.  Thomas  Brown-,  is  not  that  object.  The  two 
are  as  distinct  from  each  other,  as  a  thing  loved  is  distinct  from 
the  pleasure  of  loving  it.  Every  special  inclination  has  its  spe- 
cial and  counterpart  object.  The  object  of  the  inclinalion  is  one 
thing  ;  the  pleasure  of  gratifying  the  inclination  is  another;  and, 
in  most  instances,  it  were  more  proper  to  say,  that  it  is  for  the 
sake  of  the  object  than  for  the  sake  of  the  pleasure  that  the  in- 
clination is  gratified.  The  distinction  that  we  now  urge,  though 
felt  to  be  a  subtle,  is  truly  a  substantial  one  ;  and  pregnant,  both 
with  important  principle  and  important  a[)plication.  The  dis- 
covery and  clear  statement  of  it  by  Butler  may  well  be  regarded 
as  the  highest  service  rendered  by  any  philosopher  to  moral 
science  ;  and  that,  from  the  light  which  it  casts,  both  on  the  pro- 
cesses of  the  human  constitution  and  on  the  theory  of  virtue. 
As  one  example  of  the  latter  service,  the  principle  in  question, 
so  plainly  and  convincingly  unfolded  by  this  great  Christian  phi- 


68  PLEASURE  OF  VIRTUOUS,  AND 

losopher  in  his  sermon  on  the  love  of  our  neighbour,  strikes, 
and  with  most  conckisive  effect,  at  the  root  of  the  selfish  system 
of  morals  ;  a  system  which  professes  that  man's  sole  object,  in 
the  practice  of  all  the  various  morahties,  is  his  own  individual 
advantage.  Now,  in  most  cases  of  a  special,  and  more  particu- 
larly of  a  virtuous  affection,  it  can  be  demonstrated,  that  the  ob- 
ject is  a  something  out  of  himself  and  distinct  from  himself. 
Take  compassion  for  one  instance  out  of  the  many.  The  object 
of  this  affection  is  the  relief  of  another's  misery,  and,  in  the 
fulfilment  of  this,  does  the  affection  meet  with  its  full  solace  and 
gratification ;  that  is,  in  a  something  altogether  external  from 
himself.  It  is  true,  that  there  is  an  appropriate  pleasure  in  the 
indulgence  of  this  affection,  even  as  there  is  in  the  indulgence  of 
every  other ;  and  in  proportion,  too,  to  the  strength  of  the  affec- 
tion, will  be  the  greatness  of  the  pleasure.  The  man  who  is 
doubly  more  compassionate  than  his  fellow,  will  have  doubly  a 
greater  enjoyment  in  the  relief  of  misery  ;  yet  that,  most  assur- 
edly, not  because  he  of  the  two  is  the  more  intently  set  on  his 
own  gratification,  but  because  he  of  the  two  is  the  more  intently 
set  on  an  outward  accomplishment,  the  relief  of  another's  wretch- 
edness. The  truth  is,  that,  just  because  more  compassionate 
than  his  fellow,  the  more  intent  is  he  than  the  other  on  the  object 
of  this  affection,  and  the  less  intent  is  he  than  the  other  on  him- 
self the  subject  of  this  affection.  His  thoughts  and  feelings  are 
more  drawn  away/o  the  sufferer,  and  therefore  more  drawn  away 
from  himself.  He  is  the  most  occupied  with  (he  object  of  this 
affection  ;  and,  on  that  very  account,  the  least  occupied  with  the 
pleasure  of  its  indulgence.  And  it  is  precisely  the  objective 
quality  of  these  regards,  which  stamps  upon  compassion  the 
character  of  a  disinterested  affection.  He  surely  is  the  most 
compassionate  whose  thoughts  and  feelings  are  most  drawn  away 
to  the  sufferer,  and  most  drawn  away  from  self;  or,  in  other 
words,  most  taken  up  with  the  direct  consideration  of  him  who  is 
the  object  of  this  affection,  and  least  taken  up  with  the  reflex 
consideration  of  the  pleasure  that  he  himself  has  in  the  indulgence 
of  it.  Yet  this  prevents  not  the  pleasure  from  being  actually 
felt ;  and  felt,  too,  in  very  proportion  to  the  intensity  of  the  com- 
passion ;  or,  in  other  words,  more  felt  the  less  it  has  been  thought 
of  at  the  time,  or  the  less  it  has  been  pursued  for  its  own  sake. 
It  seems  unavoidable  in  every  affection,  that,  the  more  a  thing 
is  loved,  the  greater  must  be  the  pleasure  of  indulging  the  love 
of  it:  yet  it  is  equally  unavoidable,  that  the  greater  in  that  case 
will  be  our  aim  towards  the  object  of  the  affection,  and  the  less 
will  be  our  aim  towards  the  pleasure  which  accompanies  its 
gratificatjon.     And  thus,   to  one  who  reflects   profoundly  and 


MISERY    OF    VICIOUS    AFFECTIONS.  69 

carefully  on  these  things,  it  is  no  paradox  that  he  who  has  had 
doubly  greater  enjoyment  than  another  in  the  exercise  of  com- 
passion, is  doubly  the  more  disinterested  of  the  two  ;  that  he  has 
had  the  most  pleasure  in  this  affection  who  has  been  the  least 
careful  to  please  himself  with  the  indulgence  of  it ;  that  he  whose 
virtuous  desires,  as  being  the  strongest,  have  in  their  gratifica- 
tion ministered  to  self  the  greatest  satisfaction,  has  been  the 
least  actuated  of  all  his  fellows  by  the  wishes,  and  stood  at  the 
greatest  distance  from  the  aims  of  selfishness.* 

7.  And  moreover,  there  is  a  just  and  philosophical  sense,  in 
which  many  of  our  special  affections,  besides  the  virtuous,  are 
alike  disinterested  with  these  ;  even  though  they  have  been 
commonly  ranked  among  the  selfish  affections  of  our  nature. 
The  proper  object  of  self-love  is  the  good  of  self;  and  this  calm 
general  regard  to  our  own  happiness  may  be  considered,  in  fact, 
as  the  only  interested  affection  to  which  our  nature  is  compe- 
tent. The  special  affections  are,  one  and  all  of  them,  distinct 
from  self-love,  both  in  their  objects,  and  in  the  real  psycho- 
logical character  of  the  affections  themselves.  The  object  of 
the  avaricious  affection  is  the  acquirement  of  wealth  ;  of  the  re- 
sentful, the  chastisement  of  an  offender;  of  the  sensual,  some- 
thing appropriate  or  suited  to  that  corporeal  affection  which  forms 
the  reigning  appetite  at  the  time.  In  none  of  these,  is  the  good 
of  self  the  proper  discriminative  object  of  the  affection;  and  the 
mind  of  him  who  is  under  their  power,  and  engaged  in  their  pro- 
secution, is  differently  employed,  from  the  mind  of  him,  who,  at 
the  time,  is  either  devising  or  doing  aught  for  the  general  or  ab- 
stract end  of  his  own  happiness.  None  of  these  special  affec- 
tions is  identical  with  the  affection  which  has  happiness  for  its 
'•hject.  So  far  from  this,  the  avaricious  man  often,  conscious 
"t'the  strength  of  his  propensity,  and  at  the  moment  of  being 
urged  forward  by  it  to  new  speculations,  acknowledges  in  his 
heart,  that  he  would  be  happier  far,  could  he  but  moderate  its 
violence,  and  be  satisfied  with  a  humbler  fortune  than  that  to 
which  his  aspirations  would  carry  him.  And  the  resentful  man, 
in  the  very  act  of  being  tempest  driven  to  some  furious  onset 
against  the  person  who  has  affronted  or  betrayed  him,  may  yet 
be  sensible  that,  instead  of  seeking  for  any  benefit  to  himself, 
he  is  rushing  on  the  destruction  of  his  character,  or  fortune,  or 
even  life.  And  many  is  the  drunkard  who  under  the  goadings 
of  an  appetite  which  he  cannot  withstand,  in  place  of  self-love 
being  the  principle,  and  his  own  greatest  happiness  the  object, 
knows  himself  to  be  on  the  road  to  inevitable  ruin.     There  is 

*  The  purely  disinterested  character  of  aright  religious  affection  might  be  proved 
by  these  considerations. 


70  PLEASURE  OF  VIRTUOUS,  AND 

an  affection  which  has  happiness  for  its  object ;  but  this  is  not 
the  affection  which  rules  and  has  the  ascendency  in  any  of  these 
instances.  These  are  all  special  affections,  grounded  on  the 
affinities  which  obtain  between  certain  objects  and  certain  parts 
of  human  nature  ;  and  which  cannot  be  indulged  beyond  a  given 
extent,  without  distemper  and  discomfort  to  the  whole  nature ; 
so  that,  in  spite  of  all  the  particular  gratifications  which  follow 
in  their  train,  the  man  over  whom  they  tyrannize  may  be  un- 
happy upon  the  whole.  The  very  distinction  between  the  affec- 
tion of  self-love  and  the  special  affections  proves  that  there  is  a 
corresponding  distinction  in  their  objects ;  and  this  again,  that 
many  of  the  latter  may  be  gratified,  while  the  former  is  disap- 
pointed,— or,  in  other  words,  that,  along  with  many  particular 
enjoyments  the  general  state  of  man  may  be  that  of  utter  and 
extreme  wretchedness.  It  is  therefore  a  competent  question, 
what  those  special  affections  are,  which  most  consist  with  the 
general  happiness  of  the  mind  ;  and  this,  notwithstanding  that 
they  all  possess  one  circumstance  in  common — the  unavoidable 
pleasure  appendant  to  the  gratification  of  each  of  them.* 

8.  This  explanation  will  help  us  to  understand  wherein  it  is 
that  the  distinction  in  point  of  enjoyment,  between  a  good  and 
an  evil  affection  of  our  nature  properly  lies.  For  there  is  a  cer- 
tain species  of  enjoyment  common  to  them  all.  It  were  a  con- 
tradiction in  terms  to  affirm  otherwise ;  for  it  were  tantamount 
to  saying,  that  an  affection  may  be  gratified,  Mithout  the  actual 
experience  of  a  gratification.     There  must  be  some  sensation  or 

*  The  following  are  the  clear  and  judicious  observations  of  Sir  James  Mackintosh 
on  this  subject : — 

"  In  contending,  therefore,  that  the  benevolent  affections  are  disinterested,  no  more 
is  claimed  for  them  than  must  be  granted  to  mere  animal  appetites  and  to  malevolent 
passions.  Each  of  these  principles  alike  seeks  its  own  object,  for  the  sake  simply  of 
obtaining  it.  Pleasure  is  the  result  of  the  attainment,  but  no  separate  part  of  the  aim 
of  the  agent.  The  desire  that  another  person  may  be  gratified,  seeks  that  outward 
object  alone,  according  to  the  general  course  of  human  desire.  Resentment  is  as 
disinterested  as  gratitude  or  pity,  but  not  more  so.  Hunger  or  thirst  may  be  as  much 
as  the  purest  benevolence,  at  variance  with  self-love,  A  regard  to  our  own  general 
happiness  is  not  a  vice,  but  in  itself  an  excellent  quality.  It  were  well  if  it  prevailed 
more  generally  over  craving  and  shortsighted  appetites.  The  weakness  of  the  social 
affections,  and  the  strength  of  the  private  desires,  properly  constitute  selfishness  ;  a 
vice  utterly  at  variance  with  the  happiness  of  him  who  harbours  it,  and  as  such,  con- 
demned by  self-love.  There  are  as  few  who  attain  the  greatest  satisfaction  to  them- 
selves, as  who  do  the  greatest  good  to  others.  It  is  absurd  to  say  with  some,  that  the 
pleasure  of  benevolence  is  selfish,  because  it  is  felt  by  self.  Understanding  and  rea- 
soning are  acts  of  self,  for  no  man  can  think  by  proxy  ;  but  no  man  ever  called  them 
selfish,  why  ?  Evidently  because  they  do  not  regard  self.  Precisely  the  same  reason 
applies  to  benevolence.  Such  an  argument  is  a  gross  confusion  of  self,  as  it  is  a 
subject  of  feeling  or  thought,  with  self  considered  as  the  object  of  either.  It  is  no 
more  just  to  refer  the  private  appetites  to  self-love  because  they  commonly  promote 
happiness,  than  it  would  be  to  refer  them  to  self-hatred,  in  those  frequent  cases  where 
their  gratification  obstructs  it." 


/ 


MISERY    OF    VICIOUS    ArFECTlONS.  71 

Other  of  happiness,  at  the  time  when  a  man  obtains  that  which  he 
is  seeking  for ;  and  if  it  be  not  a  positive  sensation  of  pleasure, 
it  will  at  least  be  the  sensation  of  a  relief  from  pain,  as  when  one 
meets  with  the  opportunity  of  wreaking  upon  its  object,  that  in- 
dignation which  had  long  kept  his  heart  in  a  tumult  of  disquietude. 
We  therefore  would  mistake  the  matter,  if  we  thought,  that  a 
state  even  of  thorough  and  unqualified  wickedness  was  exclusive 
of  all  enjoyment — for  even  the  vicious  affections  must  share  in  that 
enjoyment,  which  inseparably  attaches  to  every  affection,  at  the 
moment  of  its  indulgence.  And  thus  it  is,  that  even  in  the  veriest 
Pandemonium,  might  there  be  lurid  gleams  of  ecstacy,  and  shouts 
of  fiendish  exultation — the  merriment  of  desperadoes  in  crime, 
who  send  forth  the  outcries  of  their  spiteful  and  savage  delight, 
when  some  deep-laid  villany  has  triumphed ;  or  when  in  some 
dire  perpetration  of  revenge,  they  have  given  full  satisfaction  and 
discharge  to  the  malignity  of  their  acursed  nature.  The  asser- 
tion therefore  may  be  taken  too  generally,  when  it  is  stated,  that 
there  is  no  enjoyment  whatever  in  the  veriest  hell  of  assembled 
outcasts  ;  for  even  there,  might  there  be  many  separate  and  spe- 
cific gratifications.  And  we  must  abstract  the  pleasure  essen- 
tially involved  in  every  affection,  at  the  instant  of  its  indulgence, 
and  which  cannot  possibly  be  disjoined  from  it,  ere  we  see 
clearly  and  distinctively  wherein  it  is  that,  in  respect  of  enjoy- 
ment, the  virtuous  and  vicious  affections  differ  from  each  other. 
For  it  is  true,  that  there  is  a  common  resemblance  between  them  ; 
and  that,  by  the  universal  law  and  nature  of  affection,  there  must  be 
some  sort  of  agreeable  sensation,  in  the  act  of  their  obtaining  that 
which  they  are  seeking  after.  Yet  it  is  no  less  true,  that,  did  the 
former  affections  bear  supreme  rule  in  the  heart,  they  would 
brighten  and  tranquillize  the  whole  of  human  existence — whereas, 
had  the  latter  the  entire  and  practical  ascendency,  they  would 
distemper  the  whole  man,  and  make  him  as  completely  wretched 
as  he  were  completely  worthless. 

9.  There  is  one  leading  difference  then  between  a  virtuous 
and  a  vicious  affection — that  there  is  always  a  felt  sweetness  in 
the  very  presence  and  contact  of  the  former  ;  whereas,  in  the 
presence  and  contact  of  the  latter,  there  is  generally  or  very  often 
at  least,  a  sensation  of  bitterness.  Let  them  agree  as  they  may 
in  the  undoubted  fact  of  a  gratification  in  the  attainment  of  their 
respective  ends,  the  affections  themselves  may  be  long  in  exis- 
tence and  operation  before  their  ends  are  arrived  at ;  and  then  it 
is,  we  affirm,  that  if  compared,  there  will  be  found  a  wide  distinc- 
tion and  dissimilarity  between  them.  The  very  feeling  of  kind- 
ness is  pleasant  to  the  heart ;  and  the  very  feeling  of  anger  is  a 
painful  and  corrosive  one.     The  latter,  we  know,  is  often  said 


72  PLEASURE  OF  VIRTUOUS,  AND 

to  be  a  mixed  feeling — because  of  both  the  pleasure  and  the  pain 
which  are  said  to  enter  into  it.     But  it  will  be   found  that  the 
pleasure,  in  this  case,  hes   in  the   prospect  of  a  full  and  final 
gratification ;  and  very  often,  in  a  sort  of  current  or  partial  gra- 
tification which  one  may  experience  beforehand,  in  the  mere  vent 
or  utterance  by  words,  of  the  labouring  violence  that  is  within — 
seeing  that  words  of  bitterness,  when  discharged  on  the  object 
of  our  wrath,  are  sometimes  the  only,  and  even  the  most  effective 
executioners  of  all  the  vengeance  that  we  meditate  ;  besides  that 
by  their  means,  we  may  enlist  in  our  favour  the  grateful  sympa- 
thy of  other  men — thus   obtaining  a  solace  to  ourselves,   and 
aggravating  the  punishment  of  the  offender,  by  exciting  against 
him,  in  addition  to  our  own  hostility,  the  hostile  indignation  of 
his  fellows.     And  thus  too  is  it,  that,  in  the  case  of  anger,  there 
may  not  only  be  a  completed  gratification  at  the  last,  by  the  in- 
fliction of  a  full  and  satisfactory  chastisement ;  but  a  gratification, 
as  it  were  by  instalments,  with  every  likely  purpose  of  retaliation 
that  we  may  form  in  our  bosoms,  and  every  sentence  of  keen 
and  reproacliful  eloquence  that  may  fall  from  our  lips.     And  so 
anger  has  been  affirmed  to  be  a  mixed  emotion,  from  confound- 
ing the  pleasure  that  lies  in  the  gratification  of  the  emotion,  with 
the  pleasure  that  is  supposed  to  lie  in  the  feeling  of  the  emotion. 
But  the  truth  is,  that,  apart  from  the  gratification,  the  emotion  is 
an    exceedingly  painful   one — insomuch  that  the    gratification 
mainly  lies  in  the  removal  of  a  pain,  or  in  the  being  ridded  of  a 
felt  uneasiness.     Compassion  may  in  the  same  way  be  termed  a 
mixed  feeling.     But  on  close  attention  to  these  two  affections 
and  comparison  between  them,  it  will  be  found,  that  all  the  plea- 
sure of  anger  lies  in  its  gratification,  and  all  the  pain  of  it  in  the 
feeling  itself — whereas  all  the  pain  of  compassion  lies  in  the  dis- 
appointment of  its  gratification,  while  in  the  feeling  itself  there  is 
nought  but  pleasure.     Let  the  respective  gratifications  of  these 
two  affections — the  one,  by  the  fulfilled  retahation   of  a  wrong ; 
the  other,  by  the  fulfilled  relief  of  a  suffering — let  these  gratifica- 
tions be  put  out  of  notice  altogether,  that  we  might  but  attend  to 
the  yet  ungratified  feelings  themselves  :   and  we  cannot  imagine 
a  greater  difference  of  state  between  two  minds,  than  that  of  one 
which  luxuriates   in  the   tenderness   of  compassion,   and  that  of 
another  which  breathes  and  is  infuriated  with  the  dark  passions 
and  the  still  darker  purposes  of  resentment.     Or  we  may  appeal 
to  the  experience  of  the  same  mind,  which  at  one  time  may  have 
its  hour  of  meditated  kindness,  and   at  another  its  hour  of  medi- 
tated revenge.     We  speak  of  these  two,  not  in  the   moment  of 
their  respective  triumphs,  not  of  the  sensations  attendant  on  the 
success  of  each — but  of  the  direct  and  instant  sensations  which  lie 


MISERY    OF    VICIOUS    AFFECTIONS.  73 

in  the  feelings  themselves.  They  form  two  as  distinct  states  in 
the  moral  world,  as  sunshine  and  tempest  are  iii  the  physical 
world.  We  have  but  to  name  the  elements  which  enter  into  the 
composition  of  each,  in  order  to  suggest  the  utter  contrariety 
which  obtains  between  them — between  the  calm  and  placid  cheer- 
fulness on  the  one  hand  of  that  heart  which  is  employed  in  con- 
ceiving the  generous  wishes,  or  in  framing  the  liberal  and  fruitful 
devices  of  benevolence  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  turbulence 
and  fierce  disorder  of  the  same  heart,  when  burning  disdain,  or 
fell  and  implacable  hatred  has  taken  possession  of  it — the  reaction 
of  its  own  affronted  pride,  or  aggrieved  sense  of  the  injury  which 
has  been  done  to  it. 

10.  But  perhaps  the  most  favourable  moment  for  comparison 
between  them,  is  when  each  is  frustrated  of  its  peculiar  aim  ; 
and  so  each  is  sent  back  upon  itself,  with  that  common  suffer- 
ing to  which  all  the  affections  are  liable — the  suffering  of  a  dis- 
appointment. We  shall  be  at  no  loss  to  determine  on  which 
side  the  advantage  lies,  if  we  have  either  felt  or  witnessed  be- 
nevolence in  tears,  because  of  the  misery  which  it  cannot  alle- 
viate ;  and  rage,  in  the  agonies  of  its  defeated  impotence,  be- 
cause of  the  haughty  or  successful  defiance  of  an  enemy,  whom 
with  vain  hostility  it  has  tried  to  assail,  but  cannot  reach.  We 
have  the  example  of  a  good  affection  under  disappointment,  in 
the  case  of  virtuous  grief  or  virtuous  indignation  ;  and  of  a  bad 
affection  under  disappointment,  in  the  case  of  envy,  when,  in 
£pite  of  every  attempt  to  calumniate  or  depress  its  object,  he 
shines  forth  to  universal  acknowledgment  and  ^plause,  in  all 
the  lustre  of  his  vindicated  superiority.  It  marks  how  distinct 
these  two  sets  of  feelings  are  from  each  other,  that,  with  the 
former,  even  under  the  pain  of  disappointment,  there  is  a  some- 
thing in  the  very  taste  and  quality  of  the  feelings  themselves, 
which  acts  as  an  emollient  or  a  charm,  and  mitigates  the  pain- 
fulness — while,  with  the  latter,  there  is  nought  to  mitigate,  but 
every  thing  to  exasperate,  and  more  fiercely  to  agonize.  The 
malignant  feelings  are  no  sooner  turned  iuMardly,  by  the  arrest 
of  a  disappointment  from  without,  than  they  eat  inwardly  ;  and, 
when  foiled  in  the  discharge  of  their  purposed  violence  upon 
others,  they  recoil — and,  without  one  soothing  ingredient  to 
calm  the  labouring  effervescence,  they  kindle  a  hell  in  the  heart 
of  the  unhappy  owner.  Internally,  there  is  a  celestial  peace 
and  satisfaction  in  virtue,  even  though  in  the  midst  of  its  out- 
v»ord  discomfiture,  it  be  compelled  to  weep  over  the  unredressed 
wrongs  and  sufferings  of  humanity.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
very  glance  of  disappointed  malevolence,  bespeaks  of  this  evil 
affection,  that,  of  itself,  it  is  a  fierce  and  fretting  distemper  of  the 
7 


74  PLEASURE    OF    VIRTUOUS,    AND 

soul,  an  executioner  of  vengeance  for  all  the  guilty  passions  it 
may  have  fanned  into  mischievous  activity,  and  for  all  the  crimes 
it  may  have  instigated. 

11.  And  this  contrast  between  a  good  and  an  evil  affection, 
this  superiority  of  the  former  to  the  latter  is  fully  sustained,  when, 
instead  of  looking  to  the  state  of  mind  which  is  left  by  the  dis- 
appointment of  each,  we  look  to  the  state  of  mind  which  is  left 
by  their  respective  gratifications — the  one  a  state  of  sated  com- 
passion, the  other  of  sated  resentment.  There  is  one  most 
observable  distinction  between  the  states  of  feeling,  by  which 
an  act  of  compassion  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  resentment  on  the 
other,  are  succeeded.  It  is  seldom  that  man  feasts  his  eyes  on 
that  spectacle  of  prostrate  suffering  which,  in  a  moment  of  fury, 
he  hath  laid  at  his  feet ;  in  the  same  way  that  he  feasts  his  eyes 
on  that  picture  of  family  comfort  which  smiles  upon  him  from 
some  cottage  home,  that  his  generosity  had  reared.  This  looks 
as  if  the  sweets  of  benevolence  were  lasting,  whereas  the  sweets 
of  revengeful  malice,  such  as  they  are,  are  in  general  but  mo- 
mentary. An  act  of  compassion  may  extinguish  for  a  time  the 
feeling  of  compassion,  by  doing  away  that  suffering  which  is  the 
object  of  it;  but  then  it  generally  is  followed  up  by  a  feeling  of 
permanent  regard.  An  act  of  revenge,  when  executed  to  the 
full  extent  of  the  desire  or  purpose,  does  extinguish  and  put  an 
end  to  the  passion  of  revenge;  and  is  seldom,  if  ever,  followed 
up  by  a  feeling  of  permanent  hatred.  An  act  of  kindness  but 
attaches  the  more,  and  augments  a  friendly  disposition  towards 
its  object,  rf  were  both  untrue  in  itself,  and  unfair  to  our  na- 
ture to  say,  that  an  act  of  revenge  but  exasperates  the  more, 
and  always  augments,  or  even  often  augments,  a  hostile  dispo- 
sition towards  its  object.  It  has  been  said  that  wc  hate  the  man 
whom  we  have  injured:  but  whatever  the  truth  of  this  observa- 
tion may  be,  certain  it  is,  that  we  do  not  so  hate  the  man  of 
whom  we  have  taken  full  satisfaction  for  having  injured  us ;  or, 
if  we  could  imagine  aught  so  monstrous,  and  happily  so  rare,  as 
the  prolonged,  the  yet  unquelled  satisfaction  of  one,  who  could 
be  regaled  for  hours  with  the  sighs  of  him  whom  his  own  hands 
had  wounded ;  or,  for  months  and  years,  with  the  pining  destitu- 
tion of  the  household  whom  himself  had  impoverished  and 
brought  low;  this  were  because  the  measure  of  the  revenge  had 
not  equalled  the  measure  of  the  felt  provocation,  only  perhaps  to 
be  appeased  and  satiated  by  death.  This,  at  length,  would  ter- 
minate the  emotion.  And  here  a  new  insight  opens  upon  us  into 
the  distinction  between  a  good  and  a  bad  affection.  Benevo- 
lence, itself  of  immortal  quality,  would  immortalize  its  objects: 
ir.aitgnity,  if  not  appeased  by  an  infliction  short  of  death,  would 


MISERY    OF    VICIOUS    AFFECTIONS.  75 

destroy  them.*  The  one  is  ever  stiengthening  itself  upon  old 
objects,  and  fastening  upon  new  ones  ;  the  other  is  ever  extin- 
guishing its  resentment  towards  old  objects  by  the  pettier  acts 
of  chastisement,  or,  if  nothing  short  of  a  capital  punishment 
will  appease  it,  by  dying  with  their  death.  The  exterminating 
blow,  the  death  which  "clears  all  scores" — this  forms  the  natm-al 
and  necessary  limit  even  to  the  fiercest  revenge ;  Avhereas,  the 
outgoings  of  benevolence  are  quite  indefinite.  In  revenge,  the 
affection  is  successively  extinguished ;  and,  if  returned,  it  is  upon 
new  objects.  In  benevolence,  the  affection  is  kept  up  for  old 
objects,  while  ever  open  to  excitement  from  new  ones;  and 
hence  a  hving  and  a  multiplying  power  of  enjoyment,  which 
is  peculiarly  its  own.  On  the  same  princi})lo  that  we  water  a 
shrub  just  because  we  had  planted  it,  does  our  friendship  grow 
and  ripen  the  more  towards  him  on  whom  we  had  formerly  exer- 
cised it.  The  affection  of  kindness  for  each  individual  object 
survises  the  act  of  kindne.ss,  or,  rather,  is  strengthened  by  the 
act.  Whatever  sweetness  may  have  been  originally  in  it,  is  en- 
hanced by  the  exercise  ;  and,  so  far  from  being  stifled  by  the 
first  gratification,  it  lemains  in  greater  freshness  than  ever  for 
higher  and  larger  gratitications  than  before.  It  is  the  perennial 
quality  of  their  gratification,  which  stamps  that  superiority  ou 
the  good  affections,  we  are  now  contending  for.  Benevolence 
both  perpetuates  itself  upon  its  old  objects,  and  expands  itself 
into  a  wider  circle  as  it  meets  with  new  ones.  Not  so  with  re- 
venge, which  generally  disposes  of  the  old  object  by  one  gratifi- 
cation ;  and  then  must  transfer  itself  to  a  new  object,  ere  it  can 
meet  with  another  gratification.  I^et  us  grant  that  each  affection 
has  its  peculiar  walk  of  enjoyment.  The  history  of  the  one 
walk  presents  us  with  a  series  of  accumulations  ;  (he  history  of 
the  other  with  a  series  of  extinctions. 

12.  But  in  dwelling  on  this  beautiful  peculiarity,  by  which  a 
good  affection  is  distinguished  from  a  bad  one,  we  are  in  danger 
of  weakening  our  immediate  argument.  We  bring  forward  the 
matter  a  great  deal  too  favourably  for  the  malignant  desires  of 
the  human  heart,  if,  while  reasoning  on  the  supposition  of  an 
enjoyment,  however  transitory  in  their  gratification,  we  give  any 
room  for  the  imagination  that  even  this  is  unmixed  enjoyment. 
We  have  already  stated,  that,  of  themselves  and  anterior  to  their 
gratification,  there  is  a  painfulness  in  these  desires  ;  and  that 
when  by  their  gratification  we  get  quit  of  this  painfulness,  we 
might  after  all  obtain  little  more  than  a  relief  from  misery.  But 
the  truth  is,  that,  generally  speaking,  we  obtain  a  great  deal  less 

*  So  true  it  is,   that  he  who  hateth  his  brother  with  implacable  hatred  is  a  mur- 
derer. 


76  PLEASURE    OF    VIRTUOUS,    AND 

on  the  side  of  nappiness  than  this ;  for,  in  most  cases,  all  that 
we  obtain  by  tho  gratification  of  a  malignant  passion,  is  but  the 
exchange  of  one  misery  for  another  ;  and  this  apart  still  from 
the  remorse  of  an  evil  perpetration.  There  is  one  familiar  in- 
stance of  it,  which  often  occurs  in  conversation — when,  piqued 
by  something  offensive  in  the  remark  or  manner  of  our  fellows, 
we  react  with  a  severity  which  humbles  and  overwhelms  him. 
In  this  case,  the  pain  of  the  resentment  is  succeeded  by  the  pain 
we  feel  in  the  spectacle  of  that  distress  which  ourselves  have 
created  :  and  this,  too,  aggravated  perhaps  by  the  reprobation  of 
all  the  by-standers,  affording  thereby  a  miniature  example  of  the 
painful  alternations  which  are  constantly  taking  place  in  the  his- 
tory of  moral  evil ;  when  the  misery  of  wrong  affections  is  but 
replaced,  to  the  perpetrator  himself,  by  the  misery  of  the  wrong 
actions  to  which  they  have  hurried  him.  It  is  thus  that  a  life 
of  frequent  gratification  may,  notv.ithstanding,  be  a  life  of  in- 
tense wretchedness.  It  may  help  our  imagination  of  such  a 
state,  to  conceive  of  one,  subject  every  hour  to  the  agonies  of 
hunger,  with  such  a  mal-conformation  at  the  same  time  in  his 
organ  of  taste,  that,  in  food  of  every  description,  he  felt  a  bitter 
and  universal  nausea.  There  were  here  a  constant  gratification, 
yet  a  constant  and  severe  endurance — a  mere  alternation  of 
cruel  sufferings — the  displacement  of  one  set  of  agonies,  by  the 
substitution  of  other  agonies  in  their  room.  This  is  seldom, 
perhaps  never  realized  in  the  physical  world  ;  but  in  the  moral 
world  it  is  a  great  and  general  phenomenon.  The  example 
shows  at  least  the  possibility  of  a  constitution,  under  which  a 
series  of  incessant  gratifications  may  be  nothing  better  than  a 
restless  succession  of  distress  and  disquietude  ;  and  that  such 
should  be  the  constitution  of  our  moral  nature  as  to  make  a  life 
of  vice  a  life  of  vanity  and  cruel  vexation,  is  strong  experi- 
mental evidence  of  Him  who  ordained  this  constitution,  that  He 
hateth  iniquity,  that  He  loveth  righteousness. 

13.  But  the  peculiarity  which  we  have  been  incidentally  led 
to  notice,  is,  in  itself,  pregnant  with  inference  also.  We  should 
augur  hopefully  of  the  final  issues  of  our  moral  constitution,  as 
well  as  conclude  favourably  of  Him  who  hath  ordained  it — when 
we  find  its  workings  to  be  such,  that,  on  the  one  hand,  the  feel- 
ing of  kindness  towards  an  individual  object,  not  only  survives, 
but  is  indefinitely  strengthened  by  the  acts  of  kindness;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  that,  not  only  does  an  act  of  revenge  satiate 
and  put  an  end  to  the  feeling  of  revenge,  but  even,  that  certain 
acts  of  hostility  towards  the  individual  object  of  our  hatred  will 
make  us  relent  from  this  hatred,  and  at  length  extinguish  it  al- 
together.    May  we  not  perceive  in  this  economy  a  balance  in 


MISERY    OF    VICIOUS    AFFECTIONS.  77 

point  of  tendency,  and  ailength  of  ultimate  effect  on  the  side  of 
virtue  ?  May  it  not  wainant  the  expectation,  that,  wliile  bene- 
volence, that  great  conservative  principle  of  being-,  has  in  it  a 
principle  conservative  of  itself  cas  well  as  of  its  objects,  the  out- 
breakings  of  evil  are  but  partial  and  temporary  ;  and  that  the 
moral  world,  viewed  as  a  progressive  system  and  now  only  in  its 
transition  state,  has  been  so  constructed  as  to  secure  both  the 
j)crpetuity  of  all  the  good  afiections  and  the  indefinite  expansion 
of  them  to  ncAV  objects  and  over  a  larger  and  ever-widening 
territory  ?  At  all  events,  whatever  reason  there  may  be  to  fear, 
that,  in  the  future  arrangements  of  nature  and  providence,  both 
virtue  and  vice  will  be  capable  of  immortality — we  might 
gather  from  what  passes  under  our  eyes,  in  this  rudimental  and 
incipient  stage  of  human  existence,  that  even  with  our  present 
constitution  virtue  alone  is  capable  of  a  blissful  immortality. 
For  malice  and  falsehood  carry  in  them  the  seeds  of  their  own 
wretchedness,  if  not  of  their  own  destruction.  Only  grant  the 
soul  to  be  imperishable  ;  and  if  the  character  of  the  governor  is 
to  be  gathered  from  the  final  issues  of  the  government  over 
which  he  presides — it  says  much  for  the  moral  character  of  Him 
who  framed  us,  that,  unless  there  be  an  utter  reversal  of  the  na- 
ture which  Himself  has  given,  then,  in  respect  to  the  power  of 
conferring  enjoyment  or  of  maintaining  the  soul  in  its  healthiest 
and  happiest  mood,  it  is  righteousness  alone  which  eiidureth  for 
ever,  and  charity  alone  which  never  faileth. 

14.  And  beside  taking  account  of  the  special  enjoyments 
wliich  attach  to  the  special  virtues,  we  might  observe  on  the  gen- 
eral state  of  that  mind,  which,  under  the  consistent  and  compre- 
hensive prhiciple  of  being  or  doing  what  it  ought,  studies  rightly 
to  acquit  itself  of  all  the  moral  obligpiions.  Beside  the  perpe- 
tual feast  of  an  approving  conscience,  and  the  constant  recur- 
rence of  those  particular  gratifications  which  attach  to  the  indul- 
gence of  every  good  affection, — is  it  not  quite  obvious  of  every 
mind  which  places  itself  under  a  supreme  regimen  of  morality, 
that  then,  it  is  in  its  best  possible  condition  with  regard  to  enjo}- 
ment :  like  a- well  strung  instrument,  in  right  and  proper  tone, 
because  all  its  parts  are  put  in  right  adjustment  with  each  other  ? 
If  conscience  be  indeed  the  superior  faculty  of  our  nature,  then, 
every  time  it  is  cast  down  from  this  pre-eminence,  there  must  be 
a  sensation  of  painful  dissonance  ;  and  the  whole  man  feels  out 
of  sorts,  as  one  unhinged  or  denaturalized.  This  perhaps  is  the 
main  reason  that  a  state  of  well-doino;  stands  associated  ^^ith  a 
state  of  well-being  ;  and  why  the  special  virtur  of  temperance  is 
not  more  closely  associated  with  the  health  of  the  body,  than  the 

general  habit  of  virtue  is  with  a  wholesome  and  well-conditioned 

7* 


78  PLEASURE    OF    VIRTUOUS,    AND 

state  of  the  soul.  There  is  then  no  derangement  as  it  were  in 
the  system  of  our  nature — all  the  powers,  whether  superior  or 
subordinate,  being  in  their  right  places,  and  all  moving  without 
discord  and  without  dislocation.  It  were  anticipating  our  argu- 
ment, did  we  refer  at  present  to  the  confidence  and  regard 
wherewith  a  virtuous  man  is  surrounded  in  the  world.  We  have 
not  yet  spoken  of  the  adaptations  to  man's  moral  constitution 
from  without,  but  only  of  the  inward  pleasures  and  satisfactions 
which  are  yielded  in  the  workings  of  the  constitution  itself. 
And  surely  when  we  find  it  to  have  been  so  constructed  and  at- 
tuned by  its  maker,  that,  in  all  the  movements  of  virtue  there  is 
a  felt  and  grateful  harmony,  wliile  a  certain  jaiTing  sense  of  vio- 
lence and  discomposure  ever  attends  upon  the  opposite — we 
cannot  imagine  how  the  moral  character  of  that  being  who  Him- 
self devised  this  constitution  and  established  all  its  tendencies, 
can  be  more  clearly  or  convincingly  read,  than  in  phenomena 
like  these. 

15.  We  have  already  said  that  the  distinction  so  well  estab- 
lished by  Butler,  between  the  object  of  our  affection  and  its  ac- 
companying, nay,  inseparable  pleasure,  was  the  most  effectual 
argument  that  could  be  brought  to  bear  against  the  selfish  sys- 
tem of  morals.  The  virtuous  affection  that  is  in  a  man's  breast 
simply  leads  him  to  do  w^hat  he  ought ;  and  in  that  object  he  rests 
and  terminates.  Like  every  other  affection,  there  must  be  a 
pleasure  conjoined  with  the  prosecution  of  it ;  and  at  last  a  full 
and  final  gratification  in  the  attainment  of  its  object.  But  the 
object  must  be  distinct  from  the  pleasure,  which  itself  is  founded 
on  a  prior  suitableness  betweeen  the  mind  and  its  object.  When 
a  man  is  actuated  by  a  vntuous  desire  ;  it  is  the  virtue  itself  that 
he  is  seeking,  and  not  the  gratification  that  is  in  it.  His  single 
object  is  to  be  or  to  do  rightly — though,  the  more  intent  he  is  up- 
on this  object,  the  greater  will,  the  greater  must  be  his  satisfac- 
tion if  he  succeed  in  it.  Nevertheless,  it  is  not  the  satisfaction 
which  he  is  seeking  ;  it  is  the  object  Mhich  yields  the  satisfac- 
tion— the  object  too  for  its  own  sake,  and  not  for  the  sake  of  its 
accompanying  or  its  resulting  enjoyment.  Nay,  the  more 
strongly  and  therefore  the  more  exclusively  set  upon  virtue  for 
its  own  sake  ;  the  less  will  he  thinii  of  its  enjoyment,  and  yet 
the  greater  will  his  actual  enjoyment  be.  In  other  words,  vir- 
tue, the  more  disinterested  it  is,  is  the  more  prolific  of  happiness 
to  him  who  follows  it ;  and  then  it  is,  that,  when  freed  from  all 
the  taints  of  mercenary  selfishness,  it  yields  to  its  votary  the 
most  perfect  and  supreme  enjoyment.  Such  is  the  constitution 
of  our  nature,  that  virtue  loses  not  its  disinterested  character  ; 
and  yet  man  loses  not  his  reward  ;  and  the  author  of  this  consti,- 


MISERY    OF    VICIOUS    AFFECTIONS.  79 

tution,  He  who  hath  ordained  all  its  laws  and  its  consequences, 
has  given  signal  proof  of  His  own  supreme  regard  for  virtue, 
and  therefore,  of  the  supreme  virtue  of  His  own  character,  in  that 
He  hath  so  framed  the  creatures  of  His  will,  as  that  their  perfect 
goodness  and  perfect  happiness  are  at  one.  Yet  the  union  of 
these  does  not  constitute  their  unity.  The  union  is  a  contingent 
appointment  of  the  Deity  ;  and  so  is  at  once  the  evidence  and 
the  effect  of  the  goodness  that  is  in  His  own  nature. 

16.  This  then  is  our  second  general  argument  for  the  moral 
character  of  God,  grounded  on  the  moral  constitution  of  man  ; 
and  prior,  as  yet,  to  any  view  of  its  adaptation  to  external  nature. 
It  is  distinct  from  the  first  argument,  as  grounded  on  the  pheno- 
mena of  conscience,  which  assumes  the  office  of  judge  within 
the  breast,  all  whose  decisions  are  on  the  side  of  benevolence 
and  justice  ;  and  which  is  ever  armed  with  a  certain  power  of 
enforcement,  both  in  the  pains  of  remorse  and  the  pleasures  of 
self-approbation.  These,  however,  are  distinct  and  ought  to  be 
distinguished  from  the  direct  pleasures  of  virtue  in  itself,  and 
the  direct  pains  of  vice  in  itself,  which  form  truly  separate  ingre- 
dients, on  the  one  hand  of  a  present  and  often  very  painful  cor- 
rection, on  the  other  hand,  of  a  present  and  very  precious  reward. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THIRD  GENERAL  ARGUMENT. 

The  Power  and  Operation  of  Habit. 

1.  We  have  as  yet  beeu  occupied  with  what  may  be  termed 
the  instant  sensations,  wherewith  moraUty  is  beset  in  the  mind 
of  man — witli  the  voice  of  conscience  which  goes  immediateJy 
before,  or  with  tlie  sentence  whether  of  approval  or  condemna- 
tion, which  comes  immediately  after  it ;  and  latterly,  with  those 
states  of  feeling  which  are  experienced  at  the  moment  when 
under  the  power  of  those  affections,  to  which  any  moral  desig- 
nation, be  it  of  virtue  or  vice,  is  applicable — the  pleasure  which 
there  is  in  the  very  presence  and  contact  of  the  one,  the  distaste, 
the  bitterness  which  there  is  in  the  presence  and  contact  of  the 
other. 

2.  These  phenomena  of  juxtaposition,  as  they  may  be  termed  ; 
these  contiguous  antecedents  and  consequents  of  the  moral  and 
the  immoral  in  man,  speak  strongly  the  purpose  of  Him  who 
ordained  our  mental  constitution,  in  having  inserted  there  such 
a  constant  power  of  command  and  encouragement  on  the  side 
of  the  former,  and  a  like  constant  operation  of  checks  and  dis- 
couragement against  the  latter.  But,  perhaps,  something  more 
may  be  collected  of  the  design  and  character  of  God,  by  stretch- 
ing forward  our  observation  prospectively  in  the  history  of  man, 
and  so  extending  our  regards  to  the  more  distant  consequences 
of  virtue  or  vice,  both  on  the  frame  of  his  character  and  the  state 
of  his  enjoyments.  By  studying  these  posterior  results,  we  ap- 
jiroximate  our  views  towards  the  final  issues  of  that  administra- 
tion under  which  we  are  placed.  That  defensive  apparatus, 
wherewith  the  embryo  seed  of  plants  is  guarded  and  protected, 
might  indicate  a  special  care  or  design  in  the  preserver  of  it. 
What  that  design  particularly  is  comes  to  be  clearly  and  cer- 
tainly known,  when,  in  the  future  history  of  the  plant,  we  learn 
what  the  functions  of  the  seed  are,  after  it  has  come  to  maturity  ; 
and  then  observe,  that,  had  it  been  suffered  universally  to  perish, 
it  would  have  led, — not  to  the  mortality  of  the  individual,  for 
that  is  already  an  inevitable  law,  but  to  the  extinction  and  mor- 
tality of  the  species. 

3.  For  tracing  forward  man's  moral  history,  or  the  changes 
which  take  place  in  his  moral  state,  it  is  necessary  that  we  should 


POWER  AND  OPERATION  OF  HABIT.  81 

advert  to  the  influence  of  habit.  Yet  it  is  not  properly  the  philo- 
sophy of  habit  wherewith  our  argument  is  concerned,  but  with 
the  leading  facts  of  its  practical  operation.  A  beneficial  effect 
might  still  remain  an  evidence  of  the  divine  goodness,  by  what- 
ever steps  it  should  be  efficiently  or  physically  brought  about — 
its  power  in  this  way  depending  not  on  the  question  how  it  is, 
but  on  the  fact  that  so  it  is.  It  were  really,  therefore,  deviating 
from  our  own  strict  and  pertinent  line  of  enquiry,  did  we  stop  to 
discuss  the  philosophic  theory  of  habit,  or  suspend  our  own  in- 
dependent reasoning  till  that  theory  was  settled — beside  most 
unwisely  and  unnecessarily  attacliing  to  our  theme,  all  the  dis- 
credit of  an  obscure  or  questionable  speculation.  It  is  with  pal- 
pable and  sure  results  both  in  the  material  and  mental  world, 
more  than  with  the  recondite  processes  in  either,  that  theism  has 
chiefly  to  do ; '  and  it  is  by  the  former  more  than  by  the  latter 
that  the  cause  of  theism  is  upholden. 

4.  We  might  only  observe,  in  passing,  that  the  modification 
introduced  by  Dr.  Thomas  Brown  into  the  theory  of  habit,  was 
perhaps  uncalled  for,  even  for  the  accomplishment  of  his  own 
purpose,  which  was  to  demonstrate  that  it  required  no  peculiar 
or  original  law  of  the  human  constitution  to  account  for  its  phe- 
nomena. He  resolves,  and  we  are  disposed  to  think  rightly,  the 
whole  operation  of  habit  into  the  law  of  suggestion — only,  he 
would  extend  that  law  to  states  of  feelings,  as  well  as  to  thoughts 
or  states  of  thoughts.*  We  are  all  aware  that  if  two  objects  have 
been  seen  or  thought  of  together  on  any  former  occasion,  then 
the  thought  of  one  of  them  is  apt  to  suggest  the  thought  of  the 
other,  and  the  more  apt  the  more  frequently  that  the  suggestion 
has  taken  place — insomuch,  that,  if  the  suggestion  have  taken 
place  very  often,  we  shall  find  it  extremely  difficult,  if  not  im- 
possible, to  break  the  succession  between  the  thought  which 
suggests  and  the  thought  which  is  suggested  by  it.  Now  Dr. 
Brown  has  conceived  it  necessary  to  extend  this  principle  to 
feelings  as  well  as  thoughts — insomuch,  that,  if  on  a  former  oc- 
casion a  certain  object  have  l^een  followed  up  by  a  certain  feel- 

*  The  following  is  the  passage  taken  from  his  forty-third  lecture,  in  which  Dr. 
Brown  seems  to  connect  fueling  with  feeling  by  the  same  mental  law  which  connects 
thought  with  tiiought.  "  To  explain  the  influence  of  habit  in  increasing  the  tendency 
to  certain  actions  I  must  remark — what  I  have  already  more  than  once  repeated — 
that  the  suggesting  influence  which  is  usually  expressed  in  the  phrase  association  of 
ideas,  though  that  very  improper  phrase  would  seem  to  limit  it  to  our  ideas  or  concep- 
tions only,  and  has  unquestionably  produced  a  mistaken  belief  of  this  partial  operation 
of  a  general  influence — is  not  limited  to  those  more  than  to  any  other  states  of  mind, 
but  occurs  also  with  equal  force  in  other  feelings,  which  are  not  commonly  termed 
ideas  or  conceptions  ;  that  our  desires  or  other  emotions,  for  example,  may,  like  them, 
form  a  part  of  our  trains  of  suggestion,"  &c.  See  another  equally  ambiguous  passage 
in  his  sixty-fourth  lecture. 


82  POWER    AND    OPERATION    OF    HABIT. 

ing,  or  even  if  one  feeling  have  been  followed  up  by  another, 
then  the  thought  of  the  object  introduces  the  feeling,  or  the  one 
feeling  introduces  the  other  feeling  into  the  mind,  on  the  same 
principle  that  thought  introduces  thought.     Now  we  should  ra- 
ther be  inclined  to  hold  that  thought  introduces  feeling,  not  in 
consequence  of  the  same  law  of  suggestion  whereby  thought 
introduces  thought,  but  in  virtue  of  the  direct  power  which  lies 
in  the  object  of  the  thought  to  excite  that  feeling.     When  a  vo- 
luptuous object  awakens  a  voluptuous  feeling,  this  is  not  by  sug- 
gestion, but  by  a  direct  influence  of  its  own.     When  the  picture 
of  that  voluptuous  object  awakens  the  same  voluptuous  feeling, 
we  would  not  ascribe  it  to  suggestion,  but  still  put  it  down  to  the 
power  of  the  object,  whether  presented  or  only  represented,  to 
awaken  certain  emotions.     And  as  little  would  we  ascribe  the 
excitement  of  the  feeling  to  suggestion,  but  still  to  the  direct  and 
original  power  of  the  object — though  it  were  pictured  to  us  only 
in  thought,  instead  of  being  pictured  to  us  in  visible  imagery. 
In  like  manner,  when  the  thought  of  an  injury  awakens  in  us 
anger,  even  as  the  injury  itself  did  at  the  moment  of  its  infliction, 
we  should  not  ascribe  this  to  that  peculiar  law  which  is  termed 
the  law  of  suggestion,  and  which  undoubtedly  connects  thought 
with  thought.     But  we  should  ascribe  it  wholly  to  that  law  which 
connects  an  object  with  its  appropriate  emotion — whether  that 
object  be  present  to  the  senses,  or  have  only  been  recalled  by 
the  memory  and  is  present  to  the  thoughts.     We  sustain  an  in- 
jury, and  we  feel  resentment  in  consequence,  without,  surely, 
the  law  of  suggestion  having  had  aught  to  do  with  the  sequence. 
We  see  the  aggressor  afterwards,  and  our  anger  is  revived  against 
him,  and  with  this  particular  succession  the  law  of  suggestion  has 
certainly  had  to  do — not,  however,  in  the  way  of  thought  sug- 
gesting feeling,  but  only  in  the  way  of  thought  suggesting  thought. 
In  truth  it  is  a  succession  of  three  terms.     The  sight  of  the  man 
awakens  a  recollection  of  the  injury  ;  and  the  thought  of  the  in- 
jury awakens  the  emotion.     The  first  sequence,  or  that  which 
obtains  between  the  first  and  second  term,  is  a  pure  instance  of 
the  suggestion  of  thought  by  thought,  or,  to  speak  in  the  old  lan- 
guage, of  the  association  of  ideas.     The  second  sequence,  or 
that  which  obtains  between  the  middle  and  last  term,  is  still.  Dr. 
Brown  would  say,  an  instance  of  suggestion,  but  of  thought  sug- 
gesting the  feeling  wherewith  it  was   formerly  accompanied. 
Whereas,  in  our  apprehension,  it  is  due,  not  to  the  law  of  sug- 
gestion but  to  the  law  which  connects  an  object,  whether  present 
at  the  time  or  thought  upon  afterwards,  with  its  counterpart  emo- 
tion.    Still  the  result  is  the  same,  however  differently  accounted 
for.     One  can  think,  surely,  of  the  resentment  which  now  oc- 


POWER    AND    OPERATION    OF    HABIT.  83 

cupies  him,  as  well  as  he  can  think  of  a  past  resentment — indeed 
it  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  he  can  feel  a  resentment  without 
thinking  of  it.  Let  some  one  thought,  then,  by  the  proper  law 
of  suggestion,  have  introduced  the  thought  of  an  injury  that  had 
been  done  to  us  ;  this  second  thought  introduces  the  feeling  of 
resentment,  not  by  the  law  of  suggestion,  but  by  the  law  which 
relates  an  object,  whether  present  or  thought  upon,  to  its  appro- 
priate emotion  ;  this  emotion  is  thought  upon,  and,  not  the  emo- 
tion, but  the  thought  of  the  emotion  recalls  the  thought  of  the 
first  emotion  that  was  felt  at  the  original  infliction  of  the  injury  ; 
and  this  thought  again  recalls  to  us  the  thought  of  the  injury 
itself,  and  perhaps  the  thought  of  other  or  similar  injuries,  which, 
as  at  the  first,  excites  anew  the  feeling  of  anger,  but,  at  this  par- 
ticular step,  by  means  of  a  law  different  trom  that  of  suggestion, 
even  the  law  of  our  emotions,  in  virtue  of  which,  certain  objects, 
when  present  in  any  way  to  the  cognizance  of  the  understanding, 
awaken  certain  sensibilities  in  the  heart.  It  is  thus  that  thoughts 
and  feelings  might  reciprocally  introduce  each  other,  not  bv 
means  of  but  one  law  of  suggestion  extending  in  common  to 
them  both,  but  by  the  intermingling  of  two  laws  in  this  repeating 
or  circulating  process, — even  the  law  of  suggestion,  acting  only 
upon  the  thoughts ;  and  the  law  of  emotion,  by  which  certain 
objects,  when  presented  to  the  senses  or  to  the  memory,  have 
the  power  to  awaken  certain  correspondent  emotions.  We  in 
this  way  get  quit  of  the  mysticism  which  attaches  to  the  notion 
of  mere  feelings  either  suggesting  or  being  suggested  by  other 
feelings,  separately  from  thoughts — more  especially  when,  by  the 
association  of  thoughts  or  of  ideas  alone,  and  the  direct  power 
which  lies  in  the  objects  of  these  ideas  to  awaken  certain  emo- 
tions, all  the  phenomena  are  capable  of  being  explained.  A  cer- 
tain thought  or  object  may  suggest  the  thought  of  a  former  pro- 
vocation; this  thought  might  excite  a  feeling  of  resentment;  the 
resentment,  thus  felt  or  thought  u})on,  might  send  back  the  mind 
to  a  still  more  vivid  impression  of  its  original  caut  e  ;  and  this 
again  might  prolong  or  waken  the  resentment  anew,  and  in 
greater  freshness  than  before.  The  ultimate  effect  might  be  a 
fierce  and  fiery  effervescence  of  irascible  feehng.  Yet  not  by 
the  operation  of  one  law,  but  of  two  distinct  laws  in  the  human 
constitution ;  the  first  that,  in  virtue  of  which,  thoughts  suggest 
thoughts  ;  the  second  that,  in  virtue  of  which,  the  object  thus 
thought  upon  awakens  the  emotion  that  is  suited  to  it. 

5.  But  though  for  once  we  have  thus  adverted  to  the  strict 
philosophy  of  the  subject,  it  will  be  apparent,  that,  in  this  in- 
stance, it  is  of  no  practical  necessity  for  the  purposes  of  our  argu- 
ment ;  and  it  is  truly  the  same  in  many  other  instances,  where, 


84  POWER    AND    OPERATION    OP    HABIT. 

if  instead  of  reasoning  theologically  on  the  palpable  operations 
of  the  mechanism,  we  should  reason  scientifically  on  the  modus 
operandi^  we  would  run  into  really  irrelevant  discussions.  The 
theme  of  our  present  chapter  is  the  effect  of  Habit,  in  as  far  as 
these  effects  serve  to  indicate  the  design  or  character  of  Him 
who  is  the  author  of  our  mental  constitution.  It  matters  not  to 
any  conclusion  of  ours,  by  what  recondite,  or,  it  may  be,  yet  un- 
discovered process  these  effects  are  brought  about ;  and  whether 
the  common  theory,  or  that  of  Dr.  Brown,  or  that  again  as  mo- 
dified and  corrected  by  ourselves,  is  the  just  one.  It  is  enough 
to  know,  that,  if  any  given  process  of  intermingled  thought  and 
feeling  have  been  described  by  us  once,  there  are  laws  at  work, 
which,  on  the  first  step  of  that  process  again  recurring,  would 
incline  us  to  describe  the  whole  of  the  process  over  again ;  and 
with  the  greater  power  and  certainty,  the  more  frequently  that 
process  has  been  repeated.  We  are  perfectly  sure  that  the 
more  frequently  any  particular  sequence  between  thought  and 
thought  may  have  occurred,  the  more  readily  will  it  recur ; — so 
that  when  once  the  first  thought  has  entered  the  mind,  we  may 
all  the  more  confidently  reckon  on  its  being  followed  up  by  the 
second.  This  we  hold  enough  for  explaining  the  ever  recurring 
force  and  facility,  wherewith  feelings  also  will  arise  and  be 
followed  up  by  their  indulgence — and  that,  just  in  proportion  to 
the  frequency  wherewith  in  given  circumstances  they  have  been 
awakened  and  indulged  formerly.  In  as  far  as  the  objects  of 
gratification  are  the  exciting  causes  which  stimulate  and  awaken 
the  desires  of  gratification ;  then,  any  process  which  ensures 
the  presence  and  application  of  the  causes,  will  also  ensure  the 
fulfilment  of  the  effects  which  result  from  them.  If  it  be  the 
presence  or  perception  of  the  wine  that  stands  before  us  which 
stirs  up  the  appetite ;  and  if,  instead  of  acting  on  the  precept  of 
looking  not  unto  the  wine  when  it  is  red,  we  continue  to  look 
till  the  appetite  be  so  enflamed  that  the  indulgence  becomes  in- 
evitable— then,  as  we  looked  at  it  continuously  when  present, 
will  we,  by  the  law  of  suggestion,  be  apt  to  think  of  it  contigu- 
ously when  absent.  If  the  one  continuity  was  not  broken  by 
any  considerations  of  principle  or  prudence — so  the  less  readily 
will  the  other  continuity  be  broken  in  like  manner.  When  we 
revisit  the  next  social  company,  we  shall  probably  resign  our- 
selves to  the  very  order  of  sensations  that  we  did  formerly;  and 
the  more  surely,  the  oftener  that  that  order  has  already  been  de- 
scribed by  us.  And  as  the  order  of  objects  with  their  sensa- 
tions when  present,  so  is  the  order  of  thoughts  with  their  desires 
when  absent.  This  order  forces  itself  upon  the  mind  with  a 
strength  proportional  to  the  frequency  of  its  repetition  ;  and 


POWER  AND  OPERATION  OF  HABIT.  85 

desires,  when  not  evaded  by  the  mind  shifting  its  attention  away 
from  the  objects  of  them,  can  only  be  appeased  by  their  indul- 
gence. 

6.  It  is  thus  that  he  who  enters  on  a  career  of  vice,  enters  on 
a  career  of  headlong  degeneracy.  If  even  for  once  we  have  de- 
scribed that  process  of  thought  and  feeling,  wliich  leads,  whether 
through  the  imagination  or  the  senses,  from  the  first  presentation 
of  a  tempting  object  to  a  guilty  indulgence — this  ofitself  estab- 
lishes a  probability,  that,  on  the  recurrence  of  that  object,  we  shall 
pass  onward  by  the  same  steps  to  the  same  consummation.  And 
it  is  a  probability  ever  strengthening  with  every  repetition  of  the 
process,  till  at  length  it  advances  towards  the  moral  certainty 
of  a  helpless  surrender  to  the  tyranny  of  those  evil  passions, 
which  we  cannot  resist,  just  because  the  will  itself  is  in  thraldom, 
and  we  choose  not  to  resist  them.  It  is  thus  that  we  might 
trace  the  progress  of  intemperance  and  licentiousness,  and  even 
of  dishonesty,  to  whose  respective  solicitations  we  have  yielded 
at  the  first — till,  by  continuing  to  yield,  we  become  the  passive, 
the  prostrate  subjects  of  a  force  that  is  uncontrollable,  only  be- 
cause we  have  seldom  or  never  in  good  earnest  tried  to  control 
it.  It  is  not  that  we  are  struck  of  a  sudden  with  moral  impo- 
tency  ;  but  we  are  gradually  benumbed  into  it.  The  power  of 
temptation  has  not  made  instant  seizure  upon  the  faculties,  oi 
taken  them  by  storm.  It  proceeds  by  an  influence  that  is  gently 
and  almost  insensibly  progressive — just  as  progressive  in  truth, 
as  the  association  between  particular  ideas  is  strengthened  by 
the  frequency  of  their  succession.  But  even  as  that  associa- 
tion may  at  length  become  inveterate,  insomuch  that  when  the 
first  idea  finds  entry  into  the  mind,  we  cannot  withstand  the  im- 
portunity wherewith  the  second  insists  upon  following  it ;  so 
might  the  moral  habit  become  alike  inveterate — -thoughts  suc- 
ceeding thoughts,  and  urging  onward  their  counterpart  desires, 
in  that  wonted  order,  which  had  hitherto  connected  the  begin- 
ning of  a  temptation  with  its  full  and  final  victory.  At  each  re- 
petition, would  we  find  it  more  difficult  to  break  this  order,  or 
to  lay  an  arrest  upon  it — till  at  length,  as  the  fruit  of  this  wretched 
regimen,  its  unhappy  patient  is  lorded  over  by  a  power  of  moral 
evil,  which  possesses  the  whole  man,  and  wields  an  irresistible 
or  rather  an  unresisted  ascendency  over  him. 

7.  But  this  melancholy  process,  leading  to  a  vicious  indul- 
gence, may  be  counteracted  by  an  opposite  process  of  resistance, 
though  with  far  greater  facility  at  the  first — yet  a  facility  ever 
augmenting,  in  proportion  as  the  effectual  resistance  of  tempta- 
tion is  persevered  in.  That  balancing  moment,  at  which  plea- 
sure would  allure,  and  conscience  is  urging  us  to  refrain,  may 

8 


86  POWER  AND  OPERATION  OF  HABIT. 

be  regarded  as  the  point  of  departure  or  divergency,  whence  one 
or  other  of  the  two  processes  will  take  their  commencement. 
Each  of  them  consists  in  a  particular  succession  of  ideas  with 
their  attendant  feelings;  and  whichever  of  them  may  happen  to 
be  described  once,  has,  by  the  law  of  suggestion,  the  greater 
chance,  in  the  same  circumstances,  of  being  described  over 
again.  Should  the  mind  dwell  on  an  object  of  allurement,  and 
the  considerations  of  principle  not  be  entertained — it  will  pass 
onward  from  the  first  incitement  to  the  final  and  guilty  indulgence 
by  a  series  of  stepping  stones,  each  of  which  will  present  itselt 
more  readily  in  future ;  and  with  less  chance  of  arrest  or  inter- 
ruption by  the  suggestions  of  conscience  than  before.  But 
should  these  suggestions  be  admitted,  and  far  more  should  they 
prevail — then,  on  the  principle  of  association,  will  they  be  all 
the  more  apt  to  intervene,  on  the  repetition  of  the  same  circum- 
stances ;  and  again  break  that  line  of  continuity,  which  but  for 
this  intervention,  would  have  led  from  a  temptatioa  to  a  turpitude 
or  a  crime.  If  on  the  occurrence  of  a  temptation  formerly,  con- 
science did  interpose,  and  represent  the  evil  of  a  compliance,  and 
so  impress  the  man  with  a  sense  of  obligation,  as  led  him  to  dis- 
miss the  fascinating  object  from  the  presence  of  his  mind,  or  to 
hurry  away  from  it — the  likelihood  is,  that  the  recurrence  of  a 
similar  temptation  will  suggest  the  same  train  of  thoughts  and 
feelings  and  lead  to  the  same  beneficial  result;  and  this  is  a  like- 
lihood ever  increasing  with  every  repetition  of  the  process.  The 
train  which  would  have  terminated  in  a  vicious  indulgence,  is 
dispossessed  by  the  train  which  conducts  to  a  resolution  and  an 
act  of  virtuous  self-denial.  The  thoughts  which  tend  to  awaken 
emotions  and  purposes  on  the  side  of  duty  find  readier  entrance 
into  the  mind;  and  the  thoughts  which  awaken  and  urge  forward 
the  desire  of  what  is  evil  more  readily  give  way.  The  positive 
force  on  the  side  of  virtue  is  augmented,  by  every  repetition  of 
the  train  which  leads  to  a  virtuous  determination.  The  resistance 
to  this  force  on  the  side  of  vice  is  weakened,  in  proportion  to  the 
frequency  wherewith  that  train  of  suggestions  which  would  have 
led  to  a  vicious  indulgence,  is  broken  and  discomfited.  It  is 
thus  that  when  one  is  successively  resolute  in  his  opposition  to 
evil,  the  power  of  making  the  achievement  and  the  facihty  of  the 
achievement  itself  are  both  upon  the  increase ;  and  virtue  makes 
double  gain  to  herself,  by  every  separate  conquest  which  she  may 
have  won.  The  humbler  attainments  of  moral  worth  are  first 
mastered  and  secured ;  and  the  aspiring  disciple  may  pass  on- 
ward in  a  career  that  is  quite  indefinite  to  nobler  deeds  and 
nobler  sacrifices. 

8.   And  this  law  of  habit  when  enlisted  on  the  side  of  righte- 


POWER    AND    OPERATION    OF    HABIT.  87 

ousness,  not  only  strengthens  and  makes  sure  our  resistance  to 
vice,  but  facilitates  the  most  arduous  performances  of  virtue. 
The  man  whose  thoughts,  with  the  purposes  and  doings  to  which 
they  lead,  are  at  the  bidding  of  conscience,  will,  by  frequent  re- 
petition, at  length  describe  the  same  track  almost  spontaneously 
— even  as  in  physical  education,  things,  laboriously  learned  at 
the  first,  come  to  be  done  at  last  without  the  feeling  of  an  effort. 
And  so,  in  moral  education,  every  new  achievement  of  principle 
smooths  the  way  to  future  achievements  of  the  same  kind  ;  and 
the  precious  fruit  or  purchase  of  each  moral  victory  is  to  set  us 
on  higher  and  firmer  vantage-ground  for  the  conquests  of  prin- 
ciple in  all  time  coming.     He  who  resolutely  bids  away  the 
suggestions  of  avarice,  when  they  come  into  conflict  with  the  in- 
cumbent generosity;  or  the  suggestions  of  voluptuousness,  when 
they  come  into  conflict  with  the  incumbent  self-denial;  or  the 
suggestions  of  anger,  when  they  come  into  conflict  with  the  in- 
cumbent act  of  magnanimity  and  forbearance- — will  at  length  ob- 
tain, not  a  respite  only,  but  a  final  deliverance  from  their  intru- 
sion.  Conscience,  the  longer  it  has  made  way  over  the  obstacles 
of  selfishness  and  passion — the  less  will  it  give  way  to  these 
adverse  forces,  themselves  weakened  by  the  repeated  defeats 
which  they  have  sustained  in  the  warfare  of  moral  discipline  : 
Or,  in  other  words,  the  oftener  that  conscience  makes  good  the 
supremacy  which  she  claims — the  greater  would  be  the  work  of 
violence,  and  less  the  strength  for  its  accomplishment,  to  cast 
her  down  from  that  station  of  practical  guidance  and  command 
which  of  right  belongs  to  her.     It  is  just  because,  in  virtue  of 
the  law  of  suggestion,  those  trains  of  thought  and  feeling,  which 
connect  her  first  biddings  with  their  final  execution,  are  the  less 
exposed  at  every  new  instance  to  be  disturbed,  and  the   more 
likely  to  be  repeated  over  again,  that  every  good  principle  is 
more  strengthened  by  its  exercise,  and  every  good  affection  is 
more  strengthened  by  its  indulgence  than  before.     The  acts  of 
virtue  ripen  into  habits ;  and  the  goodly  and  permanent  result  is, 
the  formation  or  establishment  of  a  virtuous  character. 

9.  This  then  forms  the  subject  of  our  third  general  argument. 
The  voice  of  authority  within,  bidding  us  to  virtue  ;  and  the  im- 
mediate delights  attendant  on  obedience,  certainly,  speak  strong- 
ly for  the  moral  character  of  that  administration  under  which  we 
are  placed.  But,  by  looking  to  posterior  and  permanent  results, 
we  have  the  advantage  of  viewing  the  system  of  that  adminis- 
tration in  progress.  Instead  of  the  insulated  acts,  we  are  led  to 
regard  the  abiding  and  the  accumulating  consequences — and  by 
sti-etching  forward  our  observation  through  larger  intervals  and 
to  more  distant  points  in  the  moral  history  of  men  ;  we  a;:e  in 


88  POWER    AND    OPERATION    OF    HABIT. 

likelier  circumstances  for  obtaining  a  glimpse  of  their  final  desti- 
nation ;  and  so  of  seizing  on  this  mighty  and  mysterious  secret — 
the  reigning  policy  of  the  divine  government,  whence  we  might 
collect  the  character  of  Him  who  hath  ordained  it.     And  surely, 
it  is  of  prime  importance  to  be  noted  in  this  examination,  that  by 
every  act  of  virtue  we  become  more  powerful  for  its  service; 
and  by  every  act  of  vice  we  become  more  helplessly  its  slaves. 
Or,  in  other  words,  were  these  respective  moral  regimens  fully 
developed  into  their  respective  consummations,  it  would  seem, 
as  if  by  the  one,  we  should  be  conducted  to  that  state,  where  the 
faculty,  within,  which  is  felt  to  be  the  rightful,  would  also  become 
the  reigning  sovereign,  and  then  we  should  have  the  full  enjoy- 
ment of  all  the  harmony  and  happiness  attendant  upon  virtue — 
whereas,  by  the  other,  those  passions  of  our  nature  felt  to  be  in- 
ferior, would  obtain  the  lawless  ascendency,  and  subject  their 
wretched  bondsmen  to  the  turbulence,  and  the  agony,  and  the 
sense  of  degradation,  which,  by  the  very  constitution  of  our  being, 
are  inseparable  from  the  reign  of  moral  evil. 

10.  We  might  not  fully  comprehend  the  design   or  meaning 
of  a  process,  till  we  have  seen  the  end  of  it.     Had  there  been  no 
death,  the  mystery  of  our  present  state  might  have  been  some- 
what alleviated.     We  might  then  have  seen,  in  bolder  relief  and 
indelible  character,  the  respective  consummations  of  vice  and 
virtue — perhaps  the  world  partitioned  into  distinct  moral  territo- 
ries, where  the  habit  of  many  centuries  had  given  fixture  and  es- 
tablishment, first,  to  a  society  of  the  upright,  now  in  the  firm  pos- 
session of  all  goodness,  as  the  well-earned  result  of  that  whole- 
some discipline  through  which  they  had  passed  ;  and,  second,  to 
a  society  of  the  reprobate,  now  hardened  in  all  iniquity,  and  aban- 
doned to  the  violence  of  evil  passions  no  longer  to  be  controlled 
and  never  to  be  eradicated.     We  might  then  have  witnessed  the 
peace,  the  contentment,  the  universal  confidence  and  love,  the 
melody  of  soul,  that  reigned  in  the  dwellings  of  the  righteous  ; 
and  contrasted  these  with  the  disquietudes,  the   strifes,  the  fell 
and  fierce  collisions  of  injustice  and  mutual  disdain  and  hate  im- 
placable, the  frantic  bacchanalian  excesses  with  their  dreary  in- 
tervals of  remorse  and  lassitude,  which  kept  the   other  region  in 
perpetual  anarchy,  and  which,  constituted  as  we  are,  must  trouble 
or  dry  up  all  the  well-springs  of  enjoyment,  whether  in  the  hearts 
of  individuals  or  in  the  bosom  of  families.      We  could  have 
been  at  no  loss,  to  have  divined,  from  the  history  and  state  of  such 
a  world,  the  policy  of  its  ruler.     We  should  have  recognized  in 
that  peculiar  economy,  by  which  every  act  whether  of  virtue  or 
vice,  made  its  performer  still  more  virtuous  or  more  vicious  than 
before,  a  moral  remuneration  on  the  one  hand  and  a  moral  pe- 


POWER  AND  OPERATION  OF  HABIT.  89 

nalty  on  the  other — with  an  enhancement  of  all  the  consequences, 
whether  good  or  evil,  which  flowed  from  each  of  them.  We 
could  not  have  mistaken  the  purposes  and  mind  of  the  Deity — 
when  we  saw  thus  palpably,  and  through  the  demonstrations  of 
experience,  the  ultimate  etrects  of  these  respective  processes  ; 
and,  in  this  total  diversity  of  character,  with  a  like  total  diver- 
sity of  condition,  were  made  to  perceive,  that  righteousness  was 
its  own  eternal  reward,  and  that  wickedness  was  followed  up  and 
that  for  ever,  with  the  bitter  fruit  of  its  own  ways. 

11.  Death  so  far  intercepts  the  view  of  this  result,  that  it  is  not 
here  the  object  of  sight  or  of  experience.  Still,  however,  it  re- 
mains the  object  of  our  likely  anticipation.  The  truth  is,  that 
the  process  which  we  are  now  contemplating,  the  process  by 
which  character  is  formed  and  strengthened  and  perpetuated, 
suggests  one  of  the  strongest  arguments  within  compass  of  the 
light  of  nature,  for  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  In  the  system  of 
the  world  we  behold  so  many  adaptations,  not  only  between  the 
iaculties  of  sentient  beings,  and  their  counterpart  objects  in  ex- 
ternal nature  ;  but  between  every  historical  progression  in  nature, 
and  a  fulfdment  of  corresponding  interest  or  magnitude  which  it 
ultimately  lands  in — that  we  cannot  believe  of  man's  moral  his- 
tory, as  if  it  terminated  in  death.  More  especially  when  we 
think  of  the  virtuous  character,  how  laboriously  it  is  reared,  and 
how  slowly  it  advances  to  perfection  ;  but,  at  length,  how  indefi- 
nite its  capabilities  of  power  and  of  enjoyment  are,  after  this  edu- 
cation of  habits  has  been  completed — it  seems  like  the  breach 
of  a  great  and  general  analogy,  if  man  is  to  be  suddenly  arrested 
on  his  way  to  the  magnificent  result,  for  which  it  might  well  be 
deemed  that  the  whole  of  his  life  Avas  but  a  prei)aration  ;  having 
just  reached  the  full  capacity  of  an  enjoyment,  of  which  he  had 
only  been  permitted,  in  this  evanescent  scene,  a  few  brief  and 
passing  foretastes.  It  were  like  the  infliction  of  a  violence  on 
the  continuity  of  things,  of  which  we  behold  no  similar  example, 
if  a  being  so  gifted  were  thus  left  to  perish  in  the  full  maturity  of 
his  powers  and  moral  acquisitions.  The  very  eminence  that  he 
has  won,  we  naturally  look  upon  as  the  guarantee  and  the  pre- 
cursor of  some  great  enlargement  beyond  it — warrantingthe  hope, 
therefore,  that  Death  but  transforms  without  destroying  him,  or, 
that  the  present  is  only  an  embryo  or  rudimental  state,  the  final 
develoi)ment  of  which  is  in  another  and  future  state  of  existence. 

12.  This  is  not  the  right  place  for  a  full  exposition  of  this  ar- 
gument. We  might  only  observe,  that  there  is  an  evidence  of 
man's  unmortality,  in  the  moral  state  and  history  of  the  bad  upon 
earth,  as  well  as  of  the  good.  The  truth  is,  that  nature's  most 
vivid  anticipations  of  a  conscious  futurity  on  the  other  side  of 

8* 


90  POWER  AND  OPERATION  OF  HABIT. 

death,  are  the  forebodings  of  guilty  fear,  not  the  bright  anticipa- 
tions of  confident  and  rejoicing  hope.  We  speak  not  merely  of 
the  unredressed  wrongs  inflicted  by  the  evil  upon  the  righteous, 
and  which  seem  to  demand  an  afterplace  of  reparation  and  ven- 
geance. Beside  those  unsettled  questions  between  man  and 
man,  which  death  breaks  otfat  the  middle,  and  for  the  adjustment 
of  which  one  feels  as  if  it  were  the  cry  of  eternal  justice  that  there 
should  be  a  reckoning  afterwards — beside  these,  there  is  felt, 
more  directly  and  vividly  still,  the  sense  of  a  yet  unsettled  con- 
troversy, between  the  sinner  and  the  God  whom  he  has  offended. 
The  notion  of  immortality  is  far  more  powerfully  and  habitually 
suggested  by  the  perpetual  hauntings  or  misgivings  of  this  sort 
of  undefined  terror,  by  the  dread  of  a  coming  penalty — rather 
than  by  the  consciousness  of  merit,  or  of  a  yet  unsatisfied  claim 
to  a  well-earned  reward.  Nor  is  the  argument  at  all  lessened  by 
that  observed  phenomenon  in  the  history  of  guilt,  the  decay  of 
conscience ;  a  hebetude,  if  it  may  be  so  termed,  of  the  moral 
sensibilities,  which  keeps  pace  with  the  growth  of  a  man's  wick- 
edness, and,  at  times,  becomes  quite  inveterate  towards  the  ter- 
mination of  his  mortal  career.  The  very  torpor  and  tranquillity 
of  such  a  state,  would  only  appear  all  the  more  emphaticrJily  to 
tell,  that  a  day  of  account  is  yet  to  come,  when,  instead  of  rioting, 
as  heretofore,  in  the  impunity  of  a  hardihood  that  shields  him 
alike  from  reproach  and  fear,  conscience  will  at  length  re-awaken 
to  upbraid  him  for  his  misdoings  ;  at  once  the  assertor  of  its  own 
cause,  and  the  executioner  of  its  own  sentence.  And  even  the 
most  desperate  in  crime,  do  experience,  at  times,  such  gleams 
and  resuscitations  of  moral  light,  as  themselves  feel  to  be  the  pre- 
cursors of  a  revelation  still  more  tremendous — when  their  own 
conscience,  fully  let  loose  upon  them,  shall,  in  the  hands  of  an 
angry  God,  be  a  minister  of  fiercest  vengeance.  Certain  it  is, 
that,  if  death,  instead  of  an  entire  annihilation,  be  but  a  removal 
to  another  and  a  different  scene  of  existence,  we  see  in  this,  when 
combined  with  the  known  laws  and  processes  of  the  mind,  the 
possibility,  at  least,  of  such  a  consummation.  There  is  much  in 
the  business,  and  entertainments,  and  converse,  and  day-light  of 
that  urgent  and  obtruding  world  by  which  we  are  surrounded,  to 
carry  off  the  attention  of  the  mind  from  its  own  guiltiness,  and  so, 
to  suspend  that  agony,  which,  when  thrown  back  upon  itself  and 
dissevered  from  all  its  objects  of  gratification,  will  be  felt,  with- 
out mitigation  and  without  respite.  In  the  busy  whirl  of  life, 
the  mind,  drawn  upon  in  all  directions,  can  find,  outwardly  and 
abroad,  the  relief  of  a  constant  diversion  from  the  miseiy  of  its 
own  internal  processes.  But  a  slight  change  in  its  locality  or  its 
circumstances,  would  deliver  it  up  to  the  full  burthen  and  agony 


POWER  AND  OPERATION  OF  HABIT.  91 

of  these;  nor  can  we  imagine  a  more  intense  and  intolerable 
wretchedness,  than  that  which  would  ensue,  simply  by  rescinding 
the  connexion  which  obtains  in  this  world  between  a  depraved 
mind  and  its  external  means  of  gratification — when,  forced  in- 
wardly on  its  own  haunted  tenement,  it  met  with  nothing  there 
but  revenge  unsatiated,  and  raging  appetites,  that  never  rest  from 
their  unappeased  fermentation  ;  and  withal,  to  this  perpetual 
sense  of  want,  a  pungent  and  pervading  sense  of  worthlessness. 
It  is  the  constant  testimony  of  criminals,  that,  in  the  horrors  and 
the  tedium  of  solitary  imprisonment,  they  undergo  the  most  ap- 
palling of  all  penalties — a  penalty,  therefore,  made  up  of  moral 
elements  alone  ;  as  neither  pain,  nor  hunger,  nor  sickness,  ne- 
cessarily forms  any  of  its  ingredients.  It  strikingly  demonstrates 
the  character  of  Him  who  so  constructed  our  moral  nature,  that 
from  the  workings  of  its  mechanism  alone,  there  should  be 
evolved  a  suffering  so  tremendous  on  the  children  of  iniquity,  inso- 
much that  a  sinner  meets  with  sorest  vengeance  when  simply 
left  to  the  fruit  of  his  cwn  ways — whether  by  the  death  which 
carries  his  disembodied  spirit  to  its  Tartarus  ;  or  by  a  resurrec- 
tion to  another  scene  of  existence,  where,  in  full  possession  of 
his  earthly  habits  and  earthly  passions,  he  is  nevertheless  doom- 
ed to  everlasting  separation  from  their  present  counterpart  and 
earthly  enjoyments. 

13.  There  is  a  distinction  sometimes  made  between  the  na- 
tural and  arbitrary  rewards  of  virtue,  or  between  the  natural  and 
arbitrary  punishments  of  vice.  The  arbitrary  is  exemplified  in 
the  enactments  of  human  law  ;  there  in  general  bdng  no  natural 
or  necessary  connection  between  the  crimes  which  it  denounces, 
and  the  penalties  which  it  ordains  for  them — as  between  the  fine, 
or  the  imprisonment,  or  the  death,  upon  the  one  hand  ;  and  the 
act  of  violence,  whether  more  or  less  outrageous,  upon  the  other. 
The  natural  again  is  exemplified  in  the  workings  of  the  human 
constitution ;  there  being  a  connexion,  in  necessity  and  nature, 
between  the  temper  which  prompted  the  act  of  violence,  and  the 
wretchedness  which  it  inflicts  on  him  who  is  the  unhappy  subject, 
in  his  own  bosom,  of  its  fierce  and  wrestkss  agitations.  It  is 
thus  that  not  only  is  virtue  termed  its  own  reward,  but  vice  its  own 
i!;reatest  plague  or  self-tormentor.  We  have  no  information  of 
the  arbitrary  rewards  or  pvmishments  in  a  future  state,  but  from 
revelation  alone.  But  of  the  natural,  we  have  only  to  suppose, 
that  the  existuig  constitution  of  man,  and  his  existing  habits,  shall 
be  borne  with  him  to  the  land  of  eternity  ;  and  we  may  infornr 
ourselves  now  of  these,  by  the  experience  of  our  own  felt  and 
familiar  nature.  Our  own  experience  can  tell  that  the  native  de- 
lights of  virtue,  unaided  by  any  high  physical  gratifications,  and 


92  POWER  AND  OPERATION  OF  HABIT. 

only  if  not  disturbed  by  grievous  physical  annoyances,  were 
enough  of  themselves  to  constitute  an  elysium  of  pure  and  peren- 
nial happiness  :  and  again,  that  the  native  agonies  of  vice,  unaided 
by  any  inflictions  of  physical  suffering,  and  only  if  unalleviated  by 
a  perpetual  round  of  physical  enjoyments,  were  enough  of  them- 
selves to  constitute  a  dire  and  dreadful  Pandemonium.  They 
are  not  judicially  awarded,  but  result  from  the  workings  of  that 
constitution  which  God  hath  given  to  us  ;  and  they  speak  as  deci- 
sively the  purpose  and  character  of  Him  who  is  the  author  of  that 
constitution — as  would  any  code  of  jurisprudence  proclaimed 
from  the  sanctuary  of  heaven,  and  which  assigned  to  virtue  on  the 
one  hand,  the  honours  and  rewards  of  a  blissful  immortality,  to 
vice  on  the  other  a  place  of  anguish  among  the  outcasts  of  a  fiery 
condemnation. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

On  the   General  Jldaptation  of  External  JVatiire  to  the  JVIoral 

Constitution  of  JWan. 

1 .  It  needs  but  a  cursory  observation  of  life  to  be  made  sensible, 
that  man  has  not  been  endowed  with  a  conscience,  without,  at  the 
same  time,  being  placed  in  a  theatre  which  afforded  the  most 
abundant  scope  and  occasion  for  its  exercise.  The  truth  is,  that, 
in  the  multitude  of  feilow-beings  by  whom  he  is  surrounded,  and 
in  the  manifold  variety  of  his  social  and  family  relations,  there  is 
a  perpetual  call  on  his  sense  of  right  and  wrong — insomuch,  that 
to  the  doings  of  every  hour  throughout  his  waking  existence,  one 
or  other  of  these  moral  designations  is  applicable.  It  might 
have  been  stigmatized  as  the  example  of  a  mal-adjustment  in  the 
circumstances  of  our  species,  had  man  been  provided  with  a 
Avaste  feeling  or  a  waste  faculty,  which  remained  dormant  and 
unemployed  from  the  want  of  counterpart  objects  that  were  suit- 
ed to  it.  The  wisdom  of  God  admits  of  a  glorious  vindication 
against  any  such  charge  in  the  physical  department  of  our  nature, 
where  the  objective  and  subjective  have  been  made  so  marvel- 
lously to  harmonize  with  each  other  ;  there  being,  in  the  material 
creation,  sights  of  infinitely  varied  loveliness,  and  sounds  of  as 
varied  melody,  and  many  thousand  tastes  and  odours  of  exquisite 
gratification,  and  distinctions  innumerable  of  touch  and  feeling,  to 
meet  the  whole  compass  and  diversity  of  the  human  senses — 
multiplying  wthout  end,  both  the  notice  that  we  receive  from  ex- 
ternal things,  and  the  enjoyments  that  we  derive  from  them. 
And  as  little  in  the  moral  department  of  our  nature,  is  any  of  its 
faculties,  and  more  especially  the  great  and  master  faculty  of  all, 
left  to  languish  from  the  want  of  occupation.  The  whole  of  life, 
in  fact,  is  crowded  with  opportunities  for  its  employment — or, 
rather,  instead  of  being  represented  as  the  subject  of  so  many 
distinct  and  ever-recurring  calls,  conscience  may  well  be  repre- 
sented as  the  constant  guide  and  guardian  of  human  life  ;  and, 
for  the  right  discharge  of  this  its  high  office,  as  being  kept  on  the 
alert  perpetually.  The  creature  on  whom  conscience  hath  laid 
the  obligation  of  refraining  from  all  mischief,  and  rendering  to  soci- 
ety all  possible  good,  lives  under  a  responsibility  which  never  for  a 
single  moment  is  suspended.  He  may  be  said  to  possess  a  conti- 
nuity of  moral  being  ;  and  morality  whether  of  a  good  or  evil  hue, 
tinges  the  whole   current  of  his  history.     It  is  a  thing  of  con- 


94         ADAPTATION  OP  EXTERNAL  NATURE  TO 

stancy  as  well  as  a  thing  of  frequency — for,  even  when  not  car- 
ried forth  into  action,  it  is  not  dormant ;  but  possesses  the  mind 
in  the  form  of  a  cherished  purpose  or  cherished  principle,  or,  as 
the  Romans  expressed  it,  of  a  perpetual  will  either  to  that  which 
is  good  or  evil.  But  over  and  above  this,  the  calls  to  action  are 
innumerable.  In  the  wants  of  others  ;  in  their  powers  of  enjoy- 
ment ;  in  their  claims  on  our  equity,  our  protection,  or  our  kind- 
ness ;  in  the  various  openings  and  walks  of  usefulness  ;  in  the 
services  which  even  the  humblest  might  render  to  those  of  their 
own  family,  or  household,  or  country  ;  in  the  application,  of  that 
comprehensive  precept,  to  do  good  unto  all  men  as  we  have  op- 
portunity— we  behold  a  prodigious  number  and  diversity  of  oc- 
casions for  the  exercise  of  moral  principle.  It  is  possible  that 
the  lessons  of  a  school  may  not  be  arduous  enough  nor  diversi- 
fied enough  for  the  capacity  of  a  learner.  But  this  cannot  be 
affirmed  of  that  school  of  discipline,  alike  arduous  and  unremit- 
ting, to  which  the  great  author  of  our  being  hath  introduced  us. 
Along  with  the  moral  capacity  by  which  He  hath  endowed  us, 
He  hath  provided  a  richly  furnished  gymnasium  for  its  exercises 
and  its  trials — where  we  may  earn,  if  not  the  triumphs  of  virtue, 
at  least  some  delicious  foretastes  of  that  full  and  final  blessed- 
ness for  which  the  scholarship  of  human  life,  with  its  manifold 
engagements  and  duties,  is  so  obviously  fitted  to  prepare  us. 

2.  But  let  us  now  briefly  state  the  adaptation  of  external  na- 
ture to  the  moral  constitution  of  man,  \Wth  a  reference  to  that 
three-fold  generality  which  we  have  already  expounded.  We 
have  spoken  of  the  supremacy  of  conscience,  and  of  the  inherent 
pleasures  and  pains  of  virtue  and  vice,  and  of  the  law  and  opera- 
tion of  habit — as  forming  three  distinct  arguments  for  the  moral 
goodness  of  Him,  who  hath  so  constructed  our  nature,  that  by 
its  workings  alone,  man  should  be  so  clearly  and  powerfully 
warned  to  a  life  of  righteousness — should  in  the  native  and  im- 
mediate joys  of  rectitude,  earn  so  precious  a  reward — and, 
finally,  should  be  led  onward  to  such  a  state  of  character,  in  re- 
spect of  its  confirmed  good  or  confirmed  evil,  as  to  afford  one  of 
the  likeliest  prognostications  which  nature  offers  to  our  view  of 
an  immortality  beyond  the  grave,  where  we  shall  abundantly  reap 
the  consequence  of  our  present  doings,  in  either  the  happiness 
of  established  virtue,  or  the  utter  wretchedness  and  woe  of 
our  then  inveterate  depravity.  But  hitherto  we  have  viewed 
this  nature  of  man,  rather  as  an  individual  and  insulated  constitu- 
tion, then  as  a  mech£uiism  actuated  upon  by  any  forces  or  influ- 
ences from  without.  It  is  in  this  latter  aspect  that  we  are  hence- 
forth to  regard  it ;  and  now  only  it  is  that  we  enter  on  the  proper 
theme  of  our  volume,  or  that  the  adaptations  of  the  objective  to 


THE    MORAL    CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  95 

the  subjective  begin  to  open  upon  us.  It  will  still  be  recollected, 
however,*  that  in  our  view  of  external  nature,  we  comprehend, 
not  merely  all  that  is  external  to  the  world  of  mind — for  this 
would  have  restricted  us  to  the  consideration  of  those  reciprocal 
actings  which  take  place  between  mind  and  matter.  We  further 
comprehend  all  that  is  external  to  one  individual  mind,  and  there- 
fore the  other  minds  which  are  around  it ;  and  so  we  have  appro- 
priated, as  forming  a  part  of  our  legitimate  subject,  the  actings 
and  reactings  that  take  place  between  man  and  man  in  society. 

3.  And  first,  in  regard  to  the  power  and  sensibihty  of  con- 
science, there  is  a  most  important  influence  brought  to  bear  on 
each  mdividual  possessor  of  this  faculty  from  without,  and  by 
his  fellow  men.  It  will  help  us  to  understand  it  aright,  if  we  re- 
flect on  a  felt  and  familiar  experience  of  all  men — even  the  effect 
of  a  very  slight  notice,  often  of  a  single  word  from  one  of  our 
companions,  to  recall  some  past  scene  or  transaction  of  our  lives, 
which  had  Ions:  vanished  from  our  remembrance  ;  and  would, 
but  for  this  reawakening,  have  remained  in  deep  oblivion  to  the 
end  of  our  days.  The  phenomenon  can  easily  be  explained  by 
the  laws  of  suggestion.  Our  wonted  trains  of  thought  might 
never  have  conducted  the  mind  to  any  thought  or  recollection  of 
the  event  in  question — whereas,  on  the  occurence  of  even  a 
very  partial  intimation,  all  the  associated  circumstances  come 
into  vivid  recognition  ;  and  we  are  transported  back  again  to 
the  departed  reahties  of  former  years,  that  had  lain  extinct 
within  us  for  so  long  a  period,  and  might  have  been  extinct  for 
ever,  if  not  lighted  up  again  by  an  extraneous  application. 
How  many  are  the  days  since  early  boyhood,  of. which  not  one 
trace  or  vestige  now  abides  upon  the  memory.  Yet  perhaps 
there  is  not  one  of  these  days,  the  history  of  which  could  not 
be  recalled,  by  means  of  some  such  external  or  foreign  help 
to  the  remembrance  of  it.  Let  us  imagine,  for  example,  that  a 
daily  companion  had,  unknown  to  us,  kept  a  minute  and  statis- 
tical journal  of  all  the  events  we  personally  shared  in  ;  and 
the  likelihood  is,  that,  if  permitted  to  the  perusal  of  this  docu- 
ment, even  after  the  lapse  of  half  a  hfe  time,  our  memory 
would  depone  to  many  thousand  events  which  had  else  escaped, 
into  utter  and  irrecoverable  forgetfulness.  It  is  certainly  re- 
markable, that,  on  some  brief  utterance  by  another,  the  stories 
of  former  days  should  suddenly  reappear,  as  if  in  illumined 
characters,  on  the  tablet  from  which  they  had  so  totally  faded  ; 
that  the  mention  of  a  single  circumstance,  if  only  the  link 
of  a  train,  should  conjure  to  life  again  a  whole  host  of  sleeping 
recollections  :   And  so,  in  each  of  our  fellow  men,  might  w^e  have 

*  See  Introductory  Chapter,  1,  2,  3. 


96         ADAPTATION  OF  EXTERNAL  NATURE  TO 

a  remembrancer,  who  can  vivify  our  consciousness  anew,  re- 
specting scenes  and  transactions  of  our  former  history  which  had 
long  gone  by  ;  and  which,  after  having  vanished  once  from  a 
sohtary  mind  left  to  its  own  processes,  would  have  vanished 
everlastingly. 

4.   It  is  thus,  that,  not  only  can  one  man  make  instant  transla- 
tion of  his  own  memory  ;  but  on  certain  subjects,  he  can  even 
make  instant  translation  of  his  own  intelhgence  into  the  mind  of 
another.     A  shrewd  discerner  of  the  heart,  when  laying  upon  its 
heretofore  unrevealed  mysteries,  makes  mention  of  things  which 
at   the    moment  we  feel  to  be-  novelties  ;  but   which,    almost 
at  the  same  moment,  are  felt  and  recognized  by  us  as  truths — 
and  that,  not  because  we  receiv  e  them  upon  this  authority,  but 
on    the    independent  view  that  ourselves  have    of  their   own 
evidence.     His   utterance,  in  fact,  has  evoked  from  the  cell  of 
their  imprisonment,  remembrances,  which   but   for  him,  might 
never  have  been  awakened  ;  and  which,  when  thus  summon- 
ed into  existence,  are  so  many  vouchers  for  the  perfect  wisdom 
and  truth  of  what  he  tells.      A  thousand  pecuharities  of  life 
and  character,  till  then  unnoticed,  are    no  sooner  heard  by  us, 
although  for  the  first  time  in  our  lives,  than  they  shine  before 
the  mind's  eye,  in  the  light  of  a  satisfying  demonstration.      And 
the  reason  is,  that  the  materials  of  their  proof  have  been  ac- 
tually stored  up  within  us,  by  the  history  and*experience  of  for- 
mer   years,    though    in    chambers    of  forgetfulness — whence, 
however,  they  are  quickly  and  vividly  called  forth,  as  if  with  the 
power  of  a  talisman,  by  the  voice  of  him,  who  no  sooner  an- 
nounces his  proposition,  than  he  suggests  the  by-gone  recollec- 
tions   of  our   own  wliich  serve  to  confirm  it.      The  pages  of 
the  novelist,  or  the  preacher,  or  the  moral  essayist,  though  all 
of  them  should  deal  in  statements  alone,  without  the  formal  al- 
legation of  evidence,  may  be  informed  throughout  with  evidence, 
notwithstanding  ;  and  that,  because  each  of  them  speaks  to  the 
consciousness    of   his  readers,  unlocking  a  treasvuy  of  latent 
recollections,  which  no  sooner  start  again  into  being,  than  they 
become  witnesses  for  the  sagacity  and  admirable   sense  of  him 
with  whom  all  this  luminous  and  satisfying  converse  is  held. 
It  is  like  the  holding  up  of  a  mirror,  or  the  response  of  an  echo 
to  a  voice.     What  the  author   discovers,  the  reader  promptly 
and  presently  discerns.     The  one  utters  new  things  ;   but  that 
light  of  immediate  manifestation  in  which  the  other  beholds  them, 
is  struck  out  of   old  materials    which   himself   too   had    long 
since  appropriated,  but  laid  up  in  a  dormitory,  where  they  might 
have  slumbered  for  ever — had  it  not  been  for  that  voice  which 
charmed  them  anew  into  life  and  consciousness.     This  is  the 


THE    MORAL    CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  97 

only  way  in  which  the  instant  recognition  of  truths  before 
unheard  of  and  unknown  can  possibly  be  explained.  It  is  be- 
cause their  evidence  lies  enveloped  in  tlie  reminiscences  of 
other  days,  which  had  long  passed  into  oblivion  ;  but  are  again 
presented  to  the  notice  of  the  mind  by  the  power  of  association. 

5.  This  is  properly  a  case  of  intellectual  rather  than  of  moral 
adaptation  ;  and  is  only  now  adverted  to  for  the  purpose  of  illus- 
tration. For  a  decayed  conscience  is  susceptible  of  like  resus- 
citation with  a  decayed  memory.  In  treating  of  the  effects  of 
habit,  we  briefly  noticed*  the  gradual  weakening  of  conscience, 
as  the  indulgences  of  vice  were  persisted  in.  Its  remonstran- 
ces, however  ineffectual,  may,  at  the  first,  have  had  a  part  in  that 
train  of  thought  and  feeling,  which  commences  with  a  temptation, 
and  is  consummated  in  guilt;  but  in  proportion  to  the  frequency, 
wherewith  the  voice  of  conscience  is  hushed,  or  overborne,  or 
refused  entertainment  by  the  mind,  in  that  proportion  does  it  lift 
a  feebler  and  a  fainter  voice  afterwards — till  at  length  it  may 
come  to  be  unheard  ;  and  any  suggestions  from  this  faculty  may 
either  pass  unheeded,  or  perhaps  drop  out  of  the  train  altogether. 
It  is  thus  that  many  a  foul  or  horrid  immorality  may  come  at 
length  to  be  perpetrated  without  the  sense  or  feeling  of  its  enor- 
mity. Conscience,  with  the  repeated  stiflings  it  has  undergone, 
may,  as  if  on  the  eve  of  extinction,  have  ceased  from  its  exor- 
cises. This  moral  insensibility  forms,  in  truth,  one  main  con- 
stituent in  the  hardihood  of  crime.  The  conscience  is  cradled 
into  a  state  of  stupefaction  ;  and  the  criminal,  now  a  desperado 
in  guilt,  may  prosecute  his  secret  depravities,  with  no  relentings 
from  within,  and  no  other  dread  upon  his  spirit,  than  that  of  dis- 
covery by  his  fellow  men. 

6.  And  it  is  on  the  event  of  such  discovery,  that  we  meet  with 
the  phenomenon  in  question.  When  that  guilt,  to  which  he  had 
himself  become  so  profoundly  insensible,  is  at  length  beheld  in 
the  light  of  other  minds — it  is  then  that  the  scales  are  made  to 
fall  from  the  eyes  of  the  offender;  and  he,  as  if  suddenly  awoke 
from  lethargy,  stands  aghast  before  the  spectacle  of  his  own 
worthlessness.  It  is  not  the  shame  of  detection,  nor  the  fear  of 
its  consequences,  which  forms  the  whole  of  this  distress.  These 
may  aggravate  the  suffering  ;  but  they  do  not  altogether  com- 
pose it — for  often  besides,  is  there  a  resurrection  of  the  moral 
sensibilities  within  the  bosom  of  the  unhappy  criminal,  as  if  re- 
lumed at  the  touch  of  sympathy,  with  the  pronounced  judgments 
and  feelings  of  other  men.  When  their  unperverted  and  un- 
warped  consciences,  because  free  from  the  delusions  which 
encompass  his  own,  give  forth  a  righteous  sentence — they  enlist 

*  Sec  Chap.  iii.  6.  of  this  Section. 
9 


98       ADAPTATION  OF  EXTERNAL  NATURE  TO 

his  conscience  upon  their  side,  which  then  reasserts  its  power, 
and  again  speaks  to  him  in  a  voice  of  thunder.  When  that  con- 
tinuous train  between  the  first  excitement  of  some  guilty  passion, 
and  its  final  gratification,  from  which  the  suggestions  of  the  mo- 
ral faculty  had  been  so  carefully  excluded,  is  thus  arrested  and 
broken — then  does  conscience,  as  if  emancipated  from  a  spell, 
at  times  recover  from  the  infatuation  which  held  it ;  £Uid  utter 
reproaches  of  its  own,  more  terrible  to  the  sinner's  heart,  than 
all  the  execrations  of  general  society.  And  whatever  shall  forci- 
bly terminate  the  guilty  indulgence,  may,  by  interrupting  the 
accustomed  series  of  thoughts  and  purposes  and  passions,  also 
dissipate  and  put  an  end  to  the  inveteracy  of  this  moral  or  spiri- 
tual blindness.  The  confinement  of  a  prison-house  may  do  it. 
The  confinement  of  a  death-bed  may  do  it.  And  accordingly, 
on  these  occasions,  does  conscience,  after  an  interval  it  would 
seem,  not  of  death  but  only  of  suspended  animation,  come  forth 
with  the  might  of  an  avenger,  and  make  emphatic  representation 
of  her  wrongs. 

7.  But  this  influence  which  we  have  attempted  to  exhibit  in 
bold  relief,  by  means  of  rare  and  strong  exemplification,  is  in 
busy  and  perpetual  operation  throughout  society — and  that,  more 
to  prevent  crime  than  to  punish  it ;  rather,  to  maintain  the  con- 
science in  freshness  and  integrity,  than  to  reanimate  it  from  a 
state  of  decay,  or  to  recall  its  aberrations.  Indeed  its  restorative 
efficacy,  though  far  more  striking,  is  not  so  habitual,  nor  in  the 
whole  amount  so  salutary,  as  its  counteractive  efficacy.  The 
truth  is,  that  we  cannot  frequent  the  companionships  of  human 
life,  without  observing  the  constant  circulation  and  reciprocal 
play  of  the  moral  judgments  among  men — with  whom  there  is 
not  a  more  favourite  or  famihar  exercise,  than  that  of  discussing 
the  conduct  and  pronouncing  on  the  deserts  of  each  other.  It  is 
thus  that  every  individual,  liable  in  his  own  case  to  be  misled  or 
blinded  by  the  partialities  of  interest  and  passion,  is  placed  under 
the  observation  and  guardianship  of  his  fellows — who,  exempted 
from  his  personal  or  particular  bias,  give  forth  a  righteous  sen- 
tence and  cause  it  to  be  heard.  A  pure  moral  light  is  by  this 
means  kept  up  in  society,  composed  of  men  whose  thoughts  are 
ever  employed  in  '  accusing  or  else  excusing  one  another' — so 
that  every  individual  conscience  receives  an  impulse  and  a  di- 
rection from  sympathy  with  the  consciences  around  it.  We  are 
aware  that  the  love  of  applause  intervenes  at  this  point  as  a  dis- 
tinct and  auxiliary  influence.  But  the  primary  influence  is  a 
moral  one.  Each  man  lives  under  a  consciousness  of  the  vigi- 
lant and  discerning  witnesses  who  are  on  every  side  of  him ; 
and  his  conscience,  kept  on  the  alert  and  kept  in  accordance 


THE    MORAL    CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  99 

with  theirs,  acts  both  more  powerfully  and  more  purely,  than  if 
left  to  the  decay  and  the  self-deception  of  its  own  withering  soli- 
tude. The  lamp  which  might  have  waxed  dim  by  itself,  revives 
its  fading  lustre,  by  contact  and  communication  with  those  which 
burn  more  brightly  in  other  bosoms  than  its  own  ;  and  this  law 
of  interchange  between  mind  and  mind,  forms  an  important 
adaptation  in  the  mechanism  of  human  society. 

8.  But,  to  revert  for  a  moment  to  the  revival  of  conscience 
after  that  its  sensibilities  had  become  torpid  for  a  season ;  and 
they  are  quickened  anew,  as  if  by  sympathy,  with  the  moral 
judgments  of  other  men.  This  phenomenon  of  conscience 
seems  to  afford  another  glimpse  or  indication  of  futurity.  It  at 
least  tells  with  what  facility  that  Being,  who  hath  all  the  re- 
sources of  infinity  at  command,  could,  and  that  by  an  operation 
purely  mental,  inflict  the  vengeance  of  a  suffering  the  most  ex- 
quisite, on  the  children  of  disobedience.  He  has  only  to  re- 
open the  fountains  of  memory  and  conscience  ;  and  this  will  of 
itself  cause  distillation  within  the  soul  of  the  waters  of  bitter- 
ness. And  if  in  the  voice  of  earthly  remembrancers  and  earthly 
judges,  we  observe  such  a  power  of  re-awakening — we  might 
infer,  not  the  possibility  alone,  but  the  extreme  likelihood  of  a 
far  more  vivid  re-awakening,  when  the  offended  lav.  giver  him- 
self takes  the  judgment  into  His  own  hands.  If  the  rebuke  of 
human  tongues  and  human  eyes  be  of  such  force  to  revive  the 
sleeping  agony  within  us,  what  may  we  not  feel,  when  the  ad- 
verse sentence  is  pronounced  against  us  from  the  throne  of  God, 
and  in  the  midst  of  a  universal  theatre]  If,  in  this  our  little  day, 
the  condemnation  is  felt  to  be  insupportable,  that  twinkles  upon 
us  from  the  thousand  secondary  and  subordinate  lustres  by 
which  we  are  surrounded — what  must  it  be,  when  He,  by  whose 
hand  they  have  all  been  lighted  up,  turns  towards  us  the  strength 
of  His  own  countenance;  and,  with  His  look  of  reprobation 
sends  forth  trouble  and  dismay  over  the  hosts  of  the  rebellious.* 

9.  But  besides  the  pleasures  and  pains  of  conscience,  there  is, 
in  the  very  taste  and  feeling  of  moral  qualities,  a  pleasure  or  a 
pain.  This  formed  our  second  general  argument  in  favour  of 
God's  righteous  administration  ;  and  our  mental  constitution, 
even  when  viewed  singly,  furnishes  sufficient  materials  on  which 
to  build  it.  But  the  argument  is  greatly  strengthened  and  en- 
hanced by  the  adaptation  to  that  constitution  of  external  nature, 

+  Dr.  Abercroniby,  in  his  interesting  work  on  the  intellectual  powers,  states  some 
remarkable  cases  of  resuscitated  and  enlarged  memory,  whicli  remind  one  of  the  ex- 
planation given  by  Mr.  Coleridge  of  the  opening  of  the  books  in  the  day  of  judg- 
ment. It  is  on  the  opening  of  the  book  of  conscience  that  the  sinner  is  made  to  feel 
die  truth  and  righteousness  of  his  condemnation. 


100       ADAPTATION  OF  EXTERNAL  NATURE  TO 

more  especially  as  exemplified  in  the  reciprocal  influences  Avhich 
take  place  between  mind  and  mind  in  society  :   for  the  effects  of 
this  adaptation  is  to  multiply  both  the  pleasures  of  virtue  and  the 
sufferings  of  vice.   The  first,  the  original  pleasure,  is  that  which 
is  felt  by  the  virtuous  man  himself ;  as,  for  example,  by  the  be- 
nevolent, in  the  very  sense  and  feeling  of  that  kindness  whereby 
his  heart  is  actuated.     The  second  is  felt  by  him  who  is  the  ob- 
ject of  this  kindness — for  merely  in  the  conscious  possession  of 
another's  good-will,  there  is  a  great  and  distinct  enjoyment.   And 
then  the  manifested  kindness  of  the  former  awakens  gratitude,  in 
the  bosom  of  the  latter ;   and  this,  too,  is  a  highly  pleasurable 
emotion.     And  lastly,  gratitude  sends  back  a  delicious  incense 
to  the  benefactor  who  awakened  it.    By  the  purely  mental  inter- 
change  of  these   affections,   there    is  generated    a   prodigious 
amount  of  happiness ;   and  that,  altogether  independent  of  the 
gratifications  which  are  yielded  by  the  material  gifts  of  liberality 
on  the  one  hand,  or  by  the  material  services  of  gratitude  on  the 
other.  Insomuch,  that  we  have  only  to  imagine  a  reign  of  perfect 
virtue  ;  and  then,  in  spite  of  the  physical  ills  which  essentially  and 
inevitably  attach  to  our  condition,  we  should  feel  as   if  we  had 
approximated  very  nearly  to  a  state  of  perfect  enjoyment  among 
men — or,  in  other  words,  that  the  bliss  of  paradise  would  be  al- 
most fully  realized  upon  earth,  were  but  the  moral  graces  and  . 
charities  of  paradise  firmly  established  there,  and  in  full  opera- 
tion.  Let  there  be  honest  and  universal  good- will  in  every  bosom, 
and  this  be  responded  to  from  all  who  are  the  objects  of  it  by  an 
honest  gratitude   back  again  ;   let  kindness,   in  all   its   various 
effects  and  manifestations,  pass  and  repass  trom  one  heart  and 
countenance  to  another  ;  let  there  be  a  universal  courtecusness 
in  our  streets,  and  let  fidelity  and  affection  and  all  the  domestic 
virtues  take  up  their  secure  and  lasting  abode  in   every  family  ; 
let  the  succour  and  sympathy  of  a  willing  neighbourhood  be  ever 
in  readiness  to  meet  and  to  overpass  all  the  want  and  wretchedness 
to  which  humanity  is  liable  ;  let  truth,  and  honour,  and  inviolable 
friendship  between  man  and  man,  banish  all  treachery  and  in- 
justice from  the  world  ;   in  the  walks  of  merchandise,  let  an  un- 
failing integrity  on  the  one  side,  have  the  homage  done  to  it  of 
unbounded  confidence  on  the  other,  insomuch,  that  each  man  re- 
posing with  conscious  safety  on  the  uprightness  and  attachment 
of  his  fellow,  and  withal  rejoicing  as  much  in  the  prosperity  of  an 
acquaintance,  as  he  should  in  his  own,  there  would  come  to  be 
no  place  for  the  harassments  and  the  heart-burnings  of  mutual 
suspicion  or  resentment  or  envy  :  who  does  not  see,  in  the  state 
of  a  society  thus  constituted  and  thus  harmonized,  the  palpable 
evidence  of  a  nature  so  framed,  that  the  happiness  of  the  world 


THE    MORAL    CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  101 

and  the  righteousness  of  the  world  kept  pace  the  one  with  the 
other  ?  And  it  is  all  important  to  remark' of  this  happiness,  that, 
in  respect  both  to  quality  and  amount,  it  mainly  consists  of 
moral  elements — so  that  while  every  giver  who  feels  as  he  ought, 
experiences  a  delight  in  the  exercise  of  generosity  v/hich  rewards 
him  a  hundred-fold  for  all  its  sacrifices  ;  every  receiver  who 
feels  as  ho  ought,  rejoices  infinitely  more  in  the  sense  of  the 
benefactor's  kindness,  than  in  the  physical  gratification  or  fruit 
of  the  benefactor's  liberality.  It  is  saying  much  for  the  virtu- 
ousness  of  Him  who  hath  so  moulded  and  so  organized  the  spirit 
of  mauj  that,  apart  from  sense  and  from  all  its  satisfactions,  but 
from  the  ethereal  play  of  the  good  affections  alone,  the  highest 
felicity  of  our  nature  should  be  generated  ;  that,  simply  by  the 
interchange  of  cordiality  between  man  and  man,  and  one  benevo- 
lent emotion  re-echoing  to  another,  there  should  be  yiekied  to 
human  hearts,  so  much  of  the  truth  and  substance  of  real  enjoy- 
ment— so  that  did  justice,  and  charity,  and  holiness,  descend 
from  heaven  to  earth,  taking  full  and  universal  possession  of 
our  species,  the  happiness  of  heaven  would  be  sure  to  descend 
along  with  them.  Could  any  world  be  pointed  out,  where  the 
universality  and  reign  of  vice  effected  the  same  state  of  blissful 
and  secure  enjoyment  that  virtue  would  in  ours — we  should  in- 
fer that  he  was  the  patron  and  the  friend  of  vice,  who  had 
dominion  over  it.  But  when  assured,  on  the  experience  vv^e  have 
of  our  actual  nature,  that  in  ths  world  we  occupy,  a  perfect 
morality  would,  but  for  certain  physical  calamities,  be  the  har- 
binger of  a  perfect  enjoyment — we  regard  this  as  an  incontesta- 
ble evidence  for  the  moral  goodness  of  our  own  actua.1  Deity. 

10.  And  in  such  an  argument  as  ours,  although  the  main 
beatitudes  of  virtue  are  of  a  moral  and  spiritual  character,  its 
subserviency 'to  the  physical  enjoyments  of  life  ought  not  to  be 
overlooked,  though,  perhaps,  too  obvious  to  be  dwelt  upon. 
The  most  palpable  of  these  subserviencies  is  the  effect  of  bene- 
volence in  diffusing  abundance  among  the  needy,  and  so  allevi- 
ating the  ills  of  their  destitution.  This  is  so  very  patent  as  not 
to  require  being  expatiated  on.  Yet  we  might  notice  here  one 
important  adaptation,  connected  with  the  exercise  of  this  mo- 
rality— realized  but  in  part,  so  long  as  virtus  has  only  a  partial 
occupation  in  society  ;  but  destined,  we  hope,  to  receive  its  en- 
tire and  beautiful  accomplishment,  when  virtue  shall  have 
become  universal.  It  is  well  known  that  certain  collateral  but 
very  serious  mischiefs  attend  the  exercise  of  a  profuse  and  ca- 
pricious and  indiscriminate  charity ;  that  it  may,  in  fact,  aug- 
ment and  ao;2;ravate  the  indigence  which  it  tries  to  relieve, 
beside  working  a  moral  deteriorartioil  among  the  humbler  clas- 
9* 


102        ADAPTATION  OF  EXTERNAL  NATURE  TO 

ses,  by  ministering  to  the  reckless  improvidence  of  the  dissi- 
pated and  the  idle ;  an  operation  alike  injurious  to  the  physical 
comfort  of  the  one  party,  and  to  the  moral  comfort  of  the  other. 
These  effects  are  inevitable,  so  long  as  the  indiscriminate  be- 
nevolence of  the  rich  meets  with  an  indefinite  selfishness  and 
rapacity  on  the  part  of  the  poor.  But  this  evil  will  be  mitigated 
and  at  length  done  away,  .with  the  growth  of  principle  among 
mankind ;  and  more  especially,  when,  instead  of  being  confined 
to  one  of  these  classes,  it  is  partitioned  among  both.  Let  the 
wealthy  be  as  generous  as  they  ought  in  their  doings,  and  the 
poor  be  as  moderate  as  they  ought  in  their  expectations  and 
desires  ;  and  then  will  that  problem,  which  has  so  baffled  the 
politicians  and  economists  of  England,  find  its  own  sponta- 
neous, while,  at  the  same  time,  its  best  adjustment.  Let  an 
exubevant  yet  well  directed  liberality  on  the  one  side  come  into 
encounter,  instead  of  a  sordid  and  insatiable  appetency,  with  the 
recoil  of  delicacy  and  self-respect  upon  the  other,  and  the  noble 
independence  of  men  who  will  work  with  their  own  hands  rather 
than  be  burthensome ;  and  then  will  the  benefactions  of  the 
wealthy  and  the  wants  of  the  indigent,  not  only  meet  but  over- 
pass. The  willingness  of  the  one  party  to  give,  will  exceed  the 
willingness  of  the  other  to  receive ;  and  an  evil  which  threatens 
to  rend  society  asunder,  and  which  law  in  her  attempts  to  re- 
medy has  only  exasperated,  will  at  length  give  way  before  the 
omnipotence  of  moral  causes.  This,  as  being  one  of  many 
specimens,  tells  most  significantly  that  man  was  made  for  virtue, 
or  that  this  was  the  purpose  of  God  in  making  him — when  wc 
find,  that  through  no  other  medium  than  the  morality  of  the 
people,  can  the  sorest  distempers  of  society  be  healed.  The 
impotence  of  human  wisdom,  and  of  every  political  expedient 
which  this  wisdom  can  devise  for  the  well-being;  of  a  state,  when 
virtue  languishes  among  the  people,  is  one  of  the  strongest 
proofs  which  experience  affords,  that  virtue  was  the  design  of 
our  creation.  And  we  know  not  how  more  emphatic  demon- 
stration can  be  given  of  a  virtuous  Deity,  than  when  we  find  so- 
ciety to  have  been  so  constructed  by  His  hands,  that  virtue 
forms  the  great  alternative  on  which  the  secure  or  lasting  pros- 
perity of  a  commonwealth  is  hinged — so  that  for  any  aggregate 
of  human  beings  to  be  right  physically  and  right  economically, 
it  is  the  indispensable,  while  at  the  same  time  the  all  efltctual 
condition,  that  tliey  should  be  right  morally. 

11.  Nothing  can  be  more  illustrative  of  the  character  of  God, 
or  more  decisive  of  the  question,  whether  His  preference  is  for 
universal  virtue  or  for  universal  vice  in  the  world,  than  to  con- 
sider the  effect  of  each  on  the  well-being  of  human  society — 


THE    MORAL    CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  103 

even  that  society  which  He  did  Himself  ordain,  and  whose  me- 
chanism is  the  contrivance  oi*  His  own  intellect,  and  the  work 
of  His  own  hands.  It  may  not  be  easy  to  explain  the  origin  of 
that  moral  derangement  into  which  the  species  has  actually 
fallen ;  but  it  affords  no  obscure  or  uncertain  indication  of  what 
the  species  was  principally  made  for,  when  we  picture  to  our- 
selves the  difference  between  a  commonwealth  of  vice  and  n 
commonwealth  of  virtue.  We  have  already  said  enough  on  the 
obvious  connexion  which  ol)tains  between  the  righteousness  of 
a  nation  and  the  htippiness  of  its  families ;  and  it  were  super- 
fluous to  dilate  on  the  equally  obvious  connexion  whicli  obtains 
between  a  state  of  general  depravity,  and  a  state  of  general 
wretchedness  and  disorder.  And  the  counterpart  observation 
holds  true,  that,  as  the  beatitudes  of  the  one  condition,  so  the 
sufferings  of  the  other  are  chiefly  made  up  of  moral  elements. 
If,  in  the  former,  there  be  a  more  precious  and  heartfelt  enjoy- 
ment in  the  possession  of  another's  kindness,  than  in  all  the  ma- 
terial gifts  and  services  to  v/hich  that  kindness  has  prompted 
him — so  in  the  latter,  may  it  often  happen,  that  the  agony  ari- 
sing from  simple  consciousness  of  another's  malignity,  will 
greatly  exceed  any  physical  hurt,  Vvhether  in  person  or  pro- 
perty, that  we  ever  shall  sustain  from  him.  A  loss  that  we  suffer 
from  the  dishonesty  of  another  is  far  more  severely  telt,  than  a 
ten-fold  loss  occasioned  by  accident  or  misfortime — or,  in  other 
words,  we  find  the  moral  provocation  to  be  greatly  more  pun- 
gent and  intol-erable  than  the  physical  calamity.  So  that  beside 
the  material  damage,  too  palpable  to  be  insisted  on  at  any 
length,  which  vice  and  violence  inHict  upon  society,  there  should 
be  taken  into  account  the  soreness  of  spirit,  the  purely  mental  dis- 
tress and  disquietude  which  follow  in  their  train — of  which  we 
have  already  seen,  how  much  is  engendered  even  in  the  work- 
ings of  one  individual  mind;  but  susceptible  of  being  inflamed 
to  a  degree  indefinitely  higher,  by  the  reciprocal  working  of 
minds,  a-ll  of  them  hating  and  all  hateful  to  each  other.  In  this 
mere  antipathy  of  the  heart,  more  especially  when  aided  by 
nearness  and  the  opportunities  of  mutual  expression,  there  arc 
sensations  of  most  exquisite  bitterness.  There  is  a  wretch- 
edness in  the  mere  collision  of  hostile  feehngs  themselves, 
though  they  should  break  not  forth  into  overt-acts  of  hostility  ; 
in  the  simple  demonstrations  of  malignity,  apart  from  its  doings; 
in  tlie  war  but  of  words  and  looks  and  fierce  gesticulations, 
though  no  violence  should  be  inflicted  on  the  one  side  or  sus- 
tained upon  the  other.  To  make  the  aggressor  in  these  purely 
mental  conflicts  intensely  miserable,  it  is  enough  that  he  should 
experience  within  him  the  agitations  and  the  fires  of  a  resentful 


104  ADAPTATION    OF    EXTERNAL    NATURE    TO 

heart.  To  make  the  recipient  intensely  miserable,  it  is  enough 
that  he  should  be  demoniacally  glared  upon  by  a  resentful  eye. 
Were  this  power  which  resides  in  the  emotions  by  themselves 
sufficiently  reflected  on,  it  would  evmcc  how  intimately  con- 
nected, almost  how  identified,  wickedness  and  wretchedness  are 
with  each  other.  To  reahze  the  miseries  of  a  state  of  war,  it  is 
not  necessary  that  there  should  be  contests  of  personal  strength. 
The  mere  contests  of  personal  feeling  will  suffice.  Let  there 
be  mutual  rage  and  mutual  revilings ;  let  there  be  the  pangs  and 
the  outcries  of  fierce  exasperation ;  let  there  be  the  continual 
droppings  of  peevishness  and  discontent ;  let  disdain  meet  with 
equal  disdain  ;  or  even,  instead  of  scorn  from  the  lofty,  let  there 
be  but  the  slights  and  the  insults  of  contempt  from  men,  who 
themselves  are  of  the  most  contemptible  ;  let  there  be  haughty 
defiance,  and  spitefid  derision,  and  the  mortifications  of  affronted 
and  iifitated  pride — in  the  tumults  of  such  a  scene,  though  tu- 
mults of  the  mind  alone,  there  were  enough  to  constitute  a  hell 
of  assembled  maniacs  or  of  assembled  malefactors.  The  very 
presence  and  operation  of  these  passions  would  form  their  own 
aorest  punishment.  To  have  them  perpetually  in  ourselves  is  to 
have  a  hell  in  the  heart.  To  meet  with  them  perpetually  in 
others  is  to  be  compassed  about  with  a  society  of  fiends,  to  be 
beset  v/ith  the  miseries  of  a  Pandemonium. 

12.  Whether  we  look  then  to  the  separate  or  the  social  con- 
stitution of  humanity,  we  observe  abundant  evidence  for  the 
mind  and  meaning  of  the  Deity,  who  both  put  together  the  ele- 
ments of  each  individual  nature,  and  the  elements  which  enter 
i;ito  the  composition  of  society.  We  cannot  imagine  a  more 
decisive  indication  of  His  favour  being  on  the  side  of  moral 
good,  and  His  displeasure  against  moral  evil,  than  that,  by  the 
workmg  of  each  of  these  constitutions,  virtue  and  happiness  on 
the  one  hand,  vice  and  wretchedness  on  the  other,  should  -be  so 
intimately  and  inseparably  allied.  Such  sequences  or  laws  of 
nature  as  these,  speak  as  distinctly  the  character  of  him  who 
established  them,  as  any  laws  of  jurisprudence  would  the  cha- 
racter of  the  monarch  by  whom  they  were  enacted.  And  to 
learji  this  lesson,  we  do  not  need  to  wait  for  the  distant  con- 
sequences of  vice  or  virtue.  We  at  once  feel  the  distinction  put 
upon  them  by  the  hand  of  the  Almighty,  in  the  instant  sensations 
which  He  hath  appended  to  each  of  them — implicated  as  their 
efiects  are  with  the  very  fountain-head  of  moral  being,  and 
turning  the  hearts  which  they  respectively  occupy,  into  the 
seats  either  of  wildest  anarchy,  or  of  serene  and  blissful  enjoy- 
ment. 

13.   The  law  and  operation  of  habit,  as  exemplified  in  one  in- 


THE    MORAL    CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  105 

dividual  mind,  formed  the  theme  of  our  third  general  argument. 
The  only  adaptation  which  we  shall  notice  to  this  part  of  our 
mental  constitution  in  the  frame-work  of  society,  is  that  aflbrded 
by  the  changes  which  it  undergoes  in  the  flux  of  its  successive 
generations — in  virtue  of  which,  the  tender  susceptibilities  of 
childhood  are  placed  under  the  influence  of  that  ascendant  se- 
niority which  precedes  or  goes  before  it.     At  first  sight  it  may 
be  thought  of  this  peculiarity,  that  it  tells  equally  in  both  direc- 
tions— that  is,  either  in  the  transmission  and  accumulation  of 
vice,  or  in  the  transmission  and  accumulation  of  virtue  in  the 
world.     But  there  is  one  circumstance  of  superiority  in  favour 
of  the  latter,  which  bids  us  look  hopefully  onward  to  the  final 
prevalence  of  the  good  over  the  evil.     We   arc  aware  of  the 
virulence  wherewith,  in  families,  the  crime  and  profligacy  of  a 
depraved  parentage  must  operate  on  the  habits  of  their  offspring; 
and  of  the  deadly  poison  which,  in  crowded  cities,  passes  with 
quick  descent  from  the  older  to  the  younger,  along  the  links  of 
youthful  companionship ;  and  even  of  those  secret,  though  we 
trust  rare  and  monstrous  societies,  which,  in  various  countries 
and  various  ages,  wcfe  held  for  the  celebration  of  infernal  orgies, 
for  the  initiation  of  the  yet  unknowing  or  unpractised  in  the 
mysteries  of  vice.     But  after  every  deduction  has  been  made  for 
these,  who  does  not  see  that  the  systematic  and  sustained  effort, 
the  wide  and  general  enterprize,  the  combination  of  numbers  in 
the  face  of  day  and  with  the  sympathies  of  an  approving  public, 
give  a  prodigious  balance  on  the  side  of  moral  education  ?     The 
very  selfishness  of  vice  and  expansiveness  of  virtue  give  rise  to 
this  difference  between  them — the  one  concentered  on  its  own 
personal  enjoyments,  and,  with  a  few  casual  exceptions,  rather 
heedless  of  the  principles  of  others  than  set  on  any  schemes  or 
speculations  of  proselytism  ;  the  other,  by  its  very  nature,  aspir- 
ing after  the  good  of  the  whole  species,  and  bent  on  the  propa- 
gation of  its  own  likeness,  till  righteousness  and  truth  shall  have 
become  universal  among  men.     Accordingly,  all  the  ostensible 
countenance  and  exertion,  in  the  cause  of  learning,  whether  by 
governments  or  associations,  is  on  the  side  of  virtue  ;  while  no 
man  could  dare  to  front  the  public  eye,  A\ith  a  scheme  of  disci- 
pleship  in  the  lessons  whether  of  fraud  or  profligacy.     The  clear 
tendency  then  is  to  impress  a  right  direction  on  the  giant  power 
of  education  ;   and  when  this  is  brought  to  bear,  more  systema- 
tically and  generally  than  heretofore,  on  the  pliant  boyhood  of 
the  land — we  behold,  in  the  operation  of  habit,  a  guarantee  for 
the  progressive  conquests,  and  at  length  the  ultimntc  and  univer- 
sal triumph  of  good  over  evil  in  society.     Our  confidence  in  this 
result  is  greatly  enhanced,  when  we  witness  the  influence  even 


106  ADAPTATION    OF    EXTERNAL    NATURE  TO 

of  but  one  mind  among  the  hundreds  of  any  given  neighbour- 
hood— if  zealously  and  wisely  directed  to  the  object  of  moral  and 
economical  improvement.  Let  that  most  prolific  of  all  philan- 
thi'opy  then  be  fully  and  fairly  set  on  foot,  which  operates,  by 
means  of  education,  on  the  early  germs  of  character ;  and  we 
shall  have  the  most  effective  of  all  agency  engaged,  for  the  pro- 
duction of  the  likeliest  of  all  results.  The  law  of  habit,  when 
looked  to  in  the  manageable  ductility  of  its  outset,  presents  a 
mighty  opening  for  the  production  of  a  new  era^  in  the  moral 
history  of  mankind ;  and  the  same  law  of  habit,  when  looked  to 
in  the  maturity  of  its  fixed  and  final  establishment,  encourages 
the  expectation  of  a  permanent  as  well  as  universal  reign  of  vir- 
tue in  the  world. 

14.  Even  in  the  yet  chaotic  and  rudimental  state  of  the  world, 
we  can  observe  the  powers  and  the  likelihoods  of  such  a  con- 
sum.mation  ;  and  what  gives  an  overbearing  superiority  to  the 
chances  on  the  side  of  virtue  is,  that  parents,  although  the  most 
sunken  in  depravity  themselves,  welcome  the  proposals,  and  re- 
ceive with  gratitude,  the  services  of  Christian  or  moral  philan- 
thropy in  behalf  of  their  families.  However  hopeless  then  of 
reformation  among  those  whose  vicious  habits  have  become  in- 
veterate, it  is  well  that  there  should  be  so  wide  and  unobstructed 
an  access  to  those,  among  whom  the  habits  have  yet  to  be 
formed.  It  is  this  which  places  education  on  such  firm  vantage- 
ground,  if  not  for  reclaiming  the  degeneracy  of  individuals,  yet 
for  reclaiming  after  the  lapse  of  a  few  generations  the  degeneracy 
of  the  species  ;  and,  however  abortive  many  of  the  schemes  and 
enterprizes  in  this  highest  walk  of  charity  may  hitherto  have 
proved,  yet  the  manifest  and  growing  attention  to  the  cause  does 
open  a  brilliant  moral  perspective  for  the  ages  that  are  to  come. 
The  experience  of  what  has  been  done  locally  by  a  few  zealous 
individuals,  warrants  our  most  cheering  anticipations  of  what 
may  yet  be  done  universally — when  the  powers  of  that  simple 
but  mighty  instrument  which  they  employ,  if  brought  to  bear  on 
that  most  malleable  of  all  subjects,  the  infancy  of  human  exist- 
ence, come  to  be  better  vmderstood,  and  put  into  busy  operation 
over  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the  land.  In  the  grievous 
defect  of  our  national  institutions,  and  the  wretched  abandonment 
of  a  people  left  to  themselves,  and  v/ho  are  permitted  to  live 
recklessly  and  at  random  as  they  list — we  see  enough  to  account 
both  for  the  profligacy  of  our  crowded  cities,  and  for  the  sad  de- 
moralization of  our  neglected  provinces.  But  on  the  other  hand 
we  feel  assured,  that,  in  an  efficient  system  of  wise  and  well 
principled  instruction,  there  are  capabilities  within  our  reach  for 
a  great  and  glorious  revival.     We  might  not  know  the  reason, 


THE    MORAL    CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  107 

why,  in  the  moral  world,  so  many  ages  of  darkness  and  depravity 
should  have  been  permitted  to  pass  by — any  more  than  we  know 
the  reason,  why,  in  the  natural  world,  the  trees  of  a  forest,  in- 
stead of  starting  all  at  once  into  the  full  efflorescence  and  stateli- 
ness  of  their  manhood,  have  to  make  their  slow  and  laborious 
advancement  to  maturity,  cradled  in  storms,  and  alternately 
drooping  or  expanding  with  the  vicissitudes  of  the  seasons.  But, 
though  unable  to  scan  all  the  cycles  either  of  the  moral  or  natu- 
ral economy,  yet  may  we  recognize  such  influences  at  work,  as 
when  multiplied  and  developed  to  the  uttermost,  are  abundantly 
capable  of  regenerating  the  world.  One  of  the  likeliest  of  these 
influences  is  the  power  of  education — to  the  perfecting  of  which 
so  many  minds  are  earnestly  directed  at  this  moment ;  and  for 
the  general  acceptance  of  which  in  society,  we  have  a  guarantee, 
in  the  strongest  affections  and  fondest  ^vishes  of  the  fathers  and 
mothers  of  families. 


108        ADAPTATIONS  OF  EXTERNAL  NATURE  TO 


CHAPTER  V. 

Oil  the  special  and  subordinate  Adaptations  of  external  JS'ature 
to  the  moral  Constittition  of  JWan. 

1.  ^Ve  have  hitherto  confined  our  attention  to  certain  great  and 
simple  phenomena  of  our  moral  nature,  which,  though  affording 
a  different  sort  of  evidence  for  the  being  of  God  from  the  organic 
and  complicated  structures  of  the  material  world — yet,  on  the 
hypothesis  of  an  existent  Deity,  are  abundantly  decisive  of  His 
preference  for  virtue  over  vice,  and  so  of  the  righteousness  of 
His  own  character.  That  he  should  have  inserted  a  great  mas- 
ter faculty  in  every  human  bosom,  all  whose  decisions  are  on  the 
side  of  justice,  benevolence,  and  truth,  and  condemnatory  of 
their  opposites  ;  that  He  should  have  inserted  this  conscience 
with  such  powers  of  instant  retribution,  in  the  triumphs  of  that 
complacency  wherewith  he  so  promptly  rewards  the  good,  and 
the  horrors  of  that  remorse  wherewith  He  as  promptly  chastises 
the  evil ;  that  beside  these,  He  should  have  so  distinguished  be- 
tween virtue  and  vice,*  as  that  the  emotions  and  exercises  of 
the  former  should  all  be  pleasureable,  and  of  the  latter  painful  to 
the  taste  of  the  inner  man  ;  that  He  should  have  so  ordained  the 
human  constitution,  as  that  by  the  law  of  habit,  virtuous  and  vi- 
cious lives,  or  series  of  acts  having  these  respective  moral  quali- 
ties, should  issue  in  the  fixed  and  permanent  results  of  virtuous 
and  vicious  characters — these  form  the  important  generalities  of 
our  moral  nature  :  And  while  they  obviously  and  immediately 
announce  tons  a  present  demonstration  in  favour  of  virtue  ;  they 
seem  to  indicate  a  preparation  and  progress  towards  a  state  of 
things,  when,  after  that  the  moral  education  of  the  present  life  has 

*  Biiiler,  in  Part.  I,  Chapter  3d  of  hi^5  Analogy,  makes  the  following  admirable  dis- 
crimination between  actions  themselves  and  that  qualify  ascribed  to  them  which  we 
call  virtuous  or  vicious. — "  An  action  by  which  any  natural  passion  is  gratified,  or 
fortune  acquired,  procures  deligiit  or  advantage,  abstracted  from  all  consideration  of 
the  morality  of  such  action,  conserjuently  the  pleasure  or  advantage  in  this  case  is 
gained  by  the  action  itself,  not  by  the  morality,  the  virtuousness,  or  viciousness  of  it, 
though  it  be,  perhaps,  virtuous  or  vicious.  Thus  to  soy,  such  an  action  or  course  of 
behaviour,  procured  such  pleasure  or  advantage,  or  brought  on  such  inconvenience 
and  pain,  is  quite  a  different  thing  from  saying  that  such  good  or  bad  effect  was  owing 
to  the  virtue  or  vice  of  such  action  or  behaviour.  In  one  case,  an  action  abstracted 
from  all  moral  consideration,  produced  its  effect.  In  the  other  case,  for  it  will  appear 
that  there  are  such  cases,  the  morality  of  the  action,  the  action  under  a  moral  consi- 
deration, i,  e.  the  virtuousness  or  viciousness  of  it,  produced  the  effect. 


THE    MORAL    CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  109 

been  consummated,  the  great  Ruler  of  men  will  manifest  the 
eternal  distinction  which  he  puts  between  the  good  and  the  evil. 
2.  Now  in  these  few  simple  sequences,  however  strongly  and 
unequivocally  they  evince  the  character  of  a  God  already  proved 
or  already  presupposed,  we  have  not  the  same  intense  evidence 
for  design,  which  is  afforded  by  the  distinct  parts  or  the  distinct 
principles  of  a  very  multifarious  combination.  Yet  the  constitu- 
tion of  man's  moral  nature  is  not  defective  in  this  evidence — 
though  certainly  neither  so  prolific  nor  so  palpable  in  our  mental, 
as  in  our  anatomical  system.  Still,  however,  there  is  a  mechan- 
ism in  mind  as  well  as  body,  with  a  diversity  of  principles,  if  not 
a  diversity  of  parts,  consisting  of  so  many  laws,  grafted  it  may 
be  on  a  simple  and  indivisible  substance,  yet  yielding  in  the  fact 
of  their  beneficial  concurrence,  no  inconsiderable  argument  for 
the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  Him  who  framed  us.  Nor  does  it 
matter,  as  we  have  already  said,  whether  these  are  all  of  them 
original,  or  some  of  them,  as  the  analysts  of  mind  have  laboured 
to  manifest,  only  derivative  laws  in  the  human  constitution.  If 
the  former,  we  have  an  evidence  grounded  on  the  beneficial  con- 
junction of  a  greater  number  of  independent  laws.  If  the  latter, 
we  are  reduced  to  fewer  independent  laws — but  these  all  the 
more  prolific  of  useful  applications,  each  of  which  applications  is 
grounded  on  a  beneficial  adaptation  of  some  peculiar  circum- 
stances, in  the  operation  of  which  it  is,  that  the  primary  is  trans- 
muted into  a  secondary  law.*  But  w^iether  the  one  or  the  other, 
they  exhibit  phases  of  humanity  distinct  from  any  that  we  have 
yet  been  employed  in  contemplating  ;  a  number  of  special  affec- 
tions, each  characterized  by  its  own  name,  and  pointing  to  its 
own  separate  object,  yet  all  of  them  performing  an  important 
subsidiary  part,  for  the  moral  good  both  of  the  individual  and  of 
the  species  ;  and  presenting  us,  therefore,  with  the  materials  of 
additional  evidence  for  a  moral  and  beneficent  design  in  the  for- 
mation of  our  race. 

3.  When  we  look  to  the  beauty  which  overspreads  the  face 
of  nature,  and  the  exquisite  gratification  which  it  ministers  to  the 
senses  of  man — we  cannot  doubt,  either  the  taste  for  beauty 
which  resides  in  the  primeval  mind  that  emanated  all  this  grace- 
fulness ;  or  the  benevolence  that  endowed  man  with  a  kindred 
taste,  and  so  fitted  him  for  a  kindred  enjoyment.  This  conclusion, 
however,  like  any  moral  conclusion  we  have  yet  come  to,  re- 

*And  besides  this,  would  it  not  bespeak  a  more  comprehensive  wisdom  on  the  part 
of  a  human  artificer,  that  by  means  of  one  device,  or  by  the  application  of  one  prin- 
ciple, he  effected  not  a  few,  but  many  distinct  and  beneficial  purposes  ;  and  does  it 
not  in  like  manner  enhance  the  exiiibition  of  divine  skill  in  the  workmanship  of  nature, 
when  a  single  law  is  found  to  subserve  a  vast  and  manifold  variety  of  important  uses? 

10 


110        ADAPTATIONS  OF  EXTERNAL  NATURE  TO 

specting  the  perfections  or  the  purposes  of  God,  is  founded  on 
generalities, — on  the  general  amount  of  beauty  in  the  world,  and 
the  delight  wherewith  men  behold  and  admire  it.  Yet,  beside 
this,  we  may  draw  a  corroborative  evidence  for  the  same,  from 
the  machinery  of  certain  special  contrivances — as  the  con- 
struction of  the  calyx  in  plants,  for  the  defence  of  the  tender 
Ijlossom  previous  to  its  expansion ;  and  the  apparatus  for  scat- 
tering seeds,  whereby  the  earth  is  more  fully  invested  with  its 
mantle  of  rich  and  varied  garniture.  And  notwithstanding  the 
blight  which  has  so  obviously  passed  over  the  moral  world,  and 
defaced  many  of  its  original  lineaments,  while  it  has  left  the  ma- 
terialism of  creation,  the  loveliness  of  its  scenes  and  landscapes, 
in  a  great  measure  untouched — still  we  possess  very  much  the 
same  materials  for  a  Natural  Theology,  in  reasoning  on  the  ele- 
ment of  virtue,  as  in  reasoning  on  the  element  of  beauty.  We 
have  first  those  generalities  of  argument  which  are  already  ex- 
pounded by  us  at  sufficient  length ;  and  we  have  also  ihe  evi- 
dence, now  to  be  unfolded,  of  certain  special  provisions  for  the 
preservation  and  growth  of  the  immortal  plant,  in  the  study  of 
which,  we  shall  observe  more  of  mechanism  than  we  have  yet 
contemplated  ;  and  more,  therefore,  of  that  peculiar  argument  tor 
design,  which  lies  in  the  adaptation  of  varied  means,  in  the  con- 
currence of  distinct  expedients,  each  helping  the  other  onward 
to  a  certain  beneficial  consummation. 

4.   But  we  must  here  premise  an  observation  extensively  ap- 
plicable in  mental  science.     When  recognising  the  obvious  sub- 
serviency of  some  given  feeling  or  principle  in  the  mind  to  a 
beneficial  result — we  are  apt  to  imagine  that  it  was  somehow  or 
other,  in  the  contemplation  of  this  result,  that  the  principle  was 
generated  ;  and  that  therefore,  instead  of  a  distinct  and  original 
part  of  the  human  constitution,  it  is  but  a  derivative  from  an 
anterior  process  of  thought  or  calculation  on  the  part  of  man,  in 
the  act  of  reflecting  on  what  was  most  for  the  good  of  himself,  or 
the  good  of  society.     In  this  way  man  is  conceived  to  be  in  some 
measure  the  creator  of  his  own  mental  constitution  ;   or,  at  least, 
there  are  certain  parts  of  it  regarded  as  secondary,  and  the  form- 
ation of  which  is  ascribed  to  the  wisdom  of  man,  which,  if  re- 
garded as  instinctive   and   primary,  would  have  been  directly 
ascribed  to  the  wisdom  of  God.     There  are  many  writers,  fo> 
example,  on  the  origin  and  rights  of  property,  who,  instead  of 
admitting  what  may  be  termed  an  instinct  of  appropriation,  would 
hold  the  appropriating  tendency  to  be  the  result  of  human  intel- 
ligence, after  experience  had  of  the  convenience  and  benefits  of 
such  an  arrangement.     Now  on  this  subject,  we  may  take  a 
lesson  from  the  physical  constitution  of  mnn.     It  is  indispensable 


THE    MOKAL    CONSTITUTIO^T    OV    MAN.  Ill 

to  the  preservation  of  our  animal  system,  tliat  food  should  be 
received  at  certain  intervals  into  the  stomach.     Yet,  notwith- 
standing all  the  strength  which  is  ascribed  to  the  })rhiciple  of 
*"  self-preservation,  and  all  the  veneration  which  is  professed  by 
the  expounders  of  our  nature  for  the  wisdom  and  foresight  of 
man — the  author  of  our  frame  has  not  left  this  important  interest 
merely  to  our  care,  or  our  consideration.     He  has  not  so  trusted 
us  to  ourselves  ;  but  has  inserted  among  the  other  affections  and 
j)rinciples  wherewith  He  has  endowed  us,  the  appetite  of  hunger 
— a  strong  and  urgent  and  ever-recurring  desire  for  food,  which, 
it  is  most  certain,  stands  wholly  unconnected  with  any  thought 
on  our  part,  of  its  physical  or  posterior  uses  for  the- sustenance 
of  the  body ;  and  from  which  it  would  appear,  that  we  need  to 
be  not  only  reminded  at  proper  intervals  of  this  incumbent  duty, 
but  goaded  on  to  it.     Could  the  analysts  of  our  nature  have 
ascertained  of  hunger,  that  it  was  the  product  of  man's  reflection 
on  the  necessity  of  food,  it  might  have  been  quoted  as  an  in- 
stance of  the  care  which  man  takes  of  himself.     But  it  seems 
that  he  could  not  be  thus  confided,  either  with  his  own  indi- 
_  vidual  preservation,  or  with  the  preservation  of  his  species  ;  and 
so,  for  the  security  of  both  these  objects,  strong  appetites  had 
to  be  given  him,  which,  incapable  of  being  resolved  into  any 
higher  principles,  stand  distinctly  and  unequivocally  forth,  as 
instances  of  the  care  that  is  taken  of  him  by  God. 

5.  Now  this,  though  it  does  not  prove,  yet  may  prepare  us  to 
expect  similar  provisions  in  the  constitution  of  our  minds.  In- 
deed tiie  operose  and  complicated  system,  which  the  great 
Architect  of  nature  hath  devised  for  our  bodies,  carries  in  it  a 
sort  of  warning  to  those,  who,  enamoured  of  the  simplifications 
of  theory,  would  labour  to  reduce  all  our  mental  phenomena  to 
one  or  two  principles.  There  is  no  warrant  for  this  in  the 
examples  which  Anatomy  and  Physiology,  those  sciences  that 
have  to  do  with  the  animal  economy  of  man,  have  placed  before 
our  eves.  Now,  though  we  admit  not  this  as  evidence  for  the 
actual  complexity  of  man's  moral  economy — it  may  at  least 
school  away  those  prepossessions  of  the  fancy  or  of  the  taste, 
that  would  lead  us  to  resist  or  to  dislike  such  evidence  when 
offered.  We  hold  it  not  unlikely  that  the  same  Being,  who,  to 
supplement  the  defects  of  human  prudence,  hath  furnished  us 
with  distinct  corporeal  appetites,  that  might  promj)t  us  to  ope- 
rations, of  the  greatest  subservient  benefit  both  to  the  individual 
and  the  species — might  also,  to  supplement  the  defects  of  human 
wisdom  and  principle,  have  furnished  u^  with  distinct  mental 
affections  or  desires,  both  for  our  own  particular  good  and  the 
good  of  society.     If  man  could  not  be  left  to  his  own  guidance, 


112  ADAPTATIONS    OF    EXTERNAL    NATURE    TQ 

in  matters  which  needed  but  the  anticipation  of  a  few  hours  ;  but 
to  save  him  from  the  decay  and  the  death  which  must  have 
otherwise  ensued,  had  so  powerful  a  remembrancer  and  insti- 
gator given  to  him  as  the  appetite  of  hunger — we  ought  not  to 
marvel,  should  it  be  found  that  nature,  in  endowing  him  mentally, 
hath  presumed  on  his  incapacity,  either  for  wisely  devising  or  for 
regularly  acting,  with  a  view  to  distant  consequences,  and  amid 
the  complicated  relations  of  human  society.  It  may,  on  the  one 
hand,  have  inserted  forces,  when  the  mere  consideration  of  good 
effects  would  not  have  impelled  ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  may 
have  inserted  checks,  when  the  mere  consideration  of  evil  effects 
would  not  have  arrested.  Yet  so  it  is,  that,  because  of  the  good 
that  is  thereby  secured  and  of  the  evil  that  is  thereby  shunned — 
we  are  apt  to  imagine  of  some  of  the  most  useful  principles 
of  our  nature,  that  they  are,  somehow,  the  product  of  human 
manufacture  ;  the  results  of  human  intelhgence,  or  of  rapid  pro- 
cesses of  thought  by  man,  sitting  in  judgment  on  the  conse- 
quences of  his  actions,  and  wisely  providing  either  for  or  against 
them.  Now  it  is  very  true,  that  the  anger,  and  the  shame,  and 
the  emulation,  and  the  parental  affection,  and  the  compassion, 
and  the  love  of  reputation,  and  the  sense  of  property,  and  the 
conscience  or  moral  sense — are  so  many  forces  of  a  mechanism, 
which  if  not  thus  furnished,  and  that  too  within  certain  propor- 
tions, would  run  into  a  disorder  that  might  have  proved  destruc- 
tive both  of  the  individual  and  of  the  species.  For  reasons 
already  hinted  at,  we  hold  it  immaterial  to  the  cause  of  natural 
theism,  whether  these  constitutional  propensities  of  the  human 
mind  are  its  original  or  its  secondary  laws  ;  but,  a^  all  events,  it 
is  enough  for  any  argument  of  ours,  that  they  are  not  so  gene- 
i"ated  by  the  wisdom  of  man,  as  to  supersede  the  in.'erence  which 
we  drav/  from  them,  in  favour  both  of  the  wisdom  and  goodness 
of  God. 

6.  The  common  definition  given  of  anger,  is  m  instance  of 
the  tendency  on  the  part  of  philosophers,  if  net  to  derive,  at 
least  to  connect  the  emotions  of  which  we  have  heen  made  sus- 
ceptible with  certain  anterior  or  higher  principles  of  our  nature. 
Dr.  Reid  tells  us  that  the  proper  object  of  resentment  is  an  in- 
jury ;  and  that  as  "  no  man  can  have  the  notion  of  injustice, 
without  having  the  notion  of  justice,"  then,  "  if  resentment  be 
natural  to  man,  the  notion  of  justice  must  be  no  less  natural."* 

*  In  glaring  contradiction  to  this,  is  Dr.  Reid's  own  affirmation  regarding  the 
brutes.  He  says,  "  that  conscience  is  peculiar  to  man,  we  see  no  vestige  of  it  in  the 
brute  animals.  It  is  one  of  those  prerogatives  by  which  we  are  raised  above  them." 
But  animals  are  most  abundantly  capable  of  anger — even  of  that  which,  by  a  very 
general  definition,  is  said  to  be  the  emotion  that  is  awakened  by  a  sense  of  injury, 


THE    MORAL    CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  113 

And  Dr.  Brown  defines  anger  to  be  "  that  emotion  of  instant 
displeasure,  which  arises  from  the  foehng  of  injury  done  or  the 
discovery  of  injury  intended,  or,  in  many  cases,  from  the  dis- 
covery of  the  mere  omission  of  good  offices  to  which  we  con- 
ceived ourselves  entitled,  though  this  very  omission  may,  of 
itself,  be  regarded  as  a  species  of  injury."  Now  the  sense  of 
injury  implies  a  sense  of  its  opposite — a  sense  of  justice,  there- 
fore, or  the  conception  of  a  moral  standard  from  which  the  in- 
jury that  has  awakened  the  resentment,  is  felt  to  be  a  deviation. 
Ikit  as  nothing  ought  to  form  part  of  a  definition,  which  is  not 
indispensable  to  the  thing  defined,  it  would  appear,  as  if,  in  the 
judgment  of  both  these  philosophers,  all  who  were  capable  of 
tmger  must  also  have,  to  a  certain  degree,  a  capacity  of  moral 
judgment  or  moral  feeling.  The  property  of  resenting  a  hurt 
inllicted  upon  ourselves,  would,  at  this  rate,  argue,  in  all  cases, 
a  perception  of  what  the  moral  and  equitable  adjustment  would 
be  between  ourselves  and  others.  Now,  that  these  workings 
of  a  moral  nature  are  essential  to  the  feeling  of  anger,  is  an 
idea  which  admits  of  most  obvious  and  decisive  refutation — it 
being  an  emotion  to  which  not  only  infants  are  competent,  ante- 
rior to  the  first  dawnings  of  their  moral  nature  ;  but  even  idiots, 
with  whom  this  nature  is  obliterated,  or  still  more  the  inferior 
animals  who  "want  it  altogether.  There  must  be  a  sense  of  an- 
noyance to  originate  the  feeling  ;  but  a  sense  of  injury,  injply- 
ing,  as  it  does,  a  power  of  moiai  judgment  or  sensibility,  can  be 
in  no  way  indispensable  to  an  emotion,  exemj)lified  in  its  utmost 
force  and  intensity  by  sentient  creatures,  in  whom  there  caimct  be 
detected  even  the  first  rudiments  of  a  moral  nature.  Two  dogs, 
when  fighting  for  a  bone,  make  as  distinct  and  declared  an  exhi- 
l;ition  of  their  anger,  as  two  human  beings  when  disputing  about 
the  boundary  of  their  contiguous  fields.  The  emotion  flashes 
as  unequivocally  from  any  of  the  inferior,  as  it  does  from  the 
only  rational  and  moral  species  on  the  face  of  oi:r  globe  ;  as  in 
the  vindictive  glare  of  an  infuriated  bull,  or  of  a  lioness'robbed 
of  her  whelps,  and  who  as  ii'  making  proclamation  of  her  wrong;-, 
gives  forth  her  deep  and  reiterated  cry  to  the  echoes  of  the  w  ii- 
derness.  It  is  an  emotion,  in  fact,  which  seems  cr^.tensive, 
not  only  with  moral,  but  with  physical  sensation.  Aiul,  if  any 
faith  can  be  placed  in  the  physiognomy,  or  the  natural  signs,  by 
which  irrational  creatures  represent  what  passes  within  them  ; 
this  passion  announces  itself  as  vividly  and  discernibly  in  the 
outcries  of  mutual  resentment  which  ring  throughout  the  aiTipli- 

«liich  sense  of  injury  must  im;)ly  in  ii  the  sense  of  its  opposite,  even  of  justice,  and 
so  land  us  in  the  conclusion  that  brutes  are  capable  of  moral  conception,  or  that  they 
have  a  conscience. 

10* 


114        ADAPTATIONS  OF  EXTERNAL  NATURE  TO 

tildes  of  savage  aiid  solitary  nature,  as  in  the  contests  of  civi- 
lized man. 

7.  The  truth,  then,  seems  to  be,  that  the  office  of  the  moral 
faculty  is,  not  to  originate,  but  rather  to  confine  and  qualify  and 
regulate  this  emotion.  Anger,  if  we  but  study  its  history  and 
actual  exhibitions,  will  be  found  the  primary  and  the  natural  re- 
sponse to  a  hurt  or  harm  or  annoyance  of  any  sort  inflicted  on 
us  by  others  ;  and,  as  such,  may  be  quite  expansive  and  unre- 
strained and  open  to  excitation  from  all  points  of  the  compass — 
anterior  to  and  apart  from  any  consideration  of  its  justice,  or 
whether  in  the  being  who  called  it  forth,  there  have  been  the 
purpose  or  not  of  violating  our  rights.  Infants  are  fully  capable 
of  the  feeling,  long  before  they  have  a  notion  of  equity,  or  of 
what  is  rightfully  their  own  and  rightfully  another's.  The  anger 
of  animals,  too,  is,  in  like  manner,  destitute  of  that  moral  ingre- 
dient, which  the  definitions  we  have  quoted  suppose  indispen- 
sable to  the  formation  of  it.  And  yet  their  emitted  sounds  have 
the  very  expression  of  fierceness,  that  we  meet  with  so  often 
among  the  fellows  of  our  own  species.  The  provocation,  the 
resentment,  the  kindling  glance  of  hostility,  the  gradual  height- 
ening of  the  wrath,  its  discharge  in  acts  of  mutual  violence,  and 
lastly,  its  glutted  satisfaction  in  the  flight  and  even  the  death  of 
the  adversary — these  are  all  indicative  of  kindred  workings 
within,  that  have  their  outward  vent  in  a  common  and  kindred 
physiognomy,  between  him  who  is  styled  the  lord  of  the  crea- 
tion, and  those  beneath  his  feet,  who  are  conceived  to  stand  at  a 
distance  that  scarcely  admits  of  comparison  in  the  phenomena 
of  their  nature.  Even  man,  in  the  full  growth  of  his  rational 
and  moral  nature,  will  often  experience  the  outbreakings  of  an 
anger  merely  physical ;  as,  to  state  one  instance  out  of  the 
many,  may  be  witnessed  in  the  anger  wreaked  by  him  on  the  in- 
ferior animals,  when,  all  unconscious  of  injury  to  him,  they 
enter  upon  his  fields,  or  damage  the  fruit  of  his  labours.  The 
object  of  a  just  resentment  towards  others,  is  the  purposed  in- 
justice of  others  towards  us  ;  and,  so  far  from  purposing  the  in- 
justice, animals  have  not  even  the  faculty  of  conceiving  it.  The 
moral  c(^ideration,  then,  does  not  enter  as  a  constituent  part 
into  all  resentment.  It  is  rather  a  superadded  quality  which 
designates  a  species  of  it.  It  is  not  the  epithet  v/hich  charac- 
terizes all  anger,  but  is  limited  to  a  certain  kind  of  it.  It  may 
be  as  proper  to  say  of  one  anger  that  it  is  just,  and  of  another 
that  justice  or  morality  has  had  nothing  to  do  with  it — as  it  is  to 
say  of  one  blow  by  the  hand  that  it  has  been  rightfully  awarded, 
and  of  another  blow  that  such  a  moral  characteristic  is  wholly 
inapplicable.     Morality  may  at  times  characterize  both  the  men- 


THE    MORAL    CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  115 

tal  feeling,  and  the  muscular  performance  ;  but  it  should  be  as 
little  identified  with  the  one  as  with  the  other.  And  however 
much  analysts  may  have  succeeded  on  other  occasions,  in  re- 
ducing to  sameness  what  appeared  to  be  separate  constituents 
of  our  nature,  certain  it  is,  that  anger  cannot  thus  be  regarded 
as  a  resulting  manufacture  from  any  of  its  higher  principles.  It 
forms  a  distinct  and  original  part  of  our  constitution,  of  which 
morality,  whenever  it  exists  and  has  the  predominance,  might 
take  the  direction,  without  being  at  all  essential  to  the  presence 
or  operation  of  it.  So  far  from  this,  it  is  nowhere  exhibited  in 
greater  vivacity  and  distinctness  than  by  those  creatures  who 
possess  but  an  aniinal,  without  so  much  as  the  germ,  or  the 
rudest  elements  of  a  moral  nature. 

S.  Anger  then  is  an  emotion  that  may  rage  and  tumultuate  in 
a  bosom  into  which  one  moral  conception  has  never  entered. 
For  its  excitement  nothing  more  seems  necessary  than  to 
thwart  any  desire  however  unreasonable,  or  to  disappoint  any 
one  object  which  the  heart  may  chance  to  be  set  upon.  So 
far  from  a  sense  of  justice  being  needful  to  orginate  this  emo- 
tion— it  is  the  man  who,  utterly  devoid  of  justice,  would  mo- 
nopolize to  himself  all  that  lies  within  (he  visible  horizon,  who 
is  most  exposed  to  its  visitation.  He  is  the  most  vulnerable  to 
wrath  from  every  point  of  the  vast  circumference  around  him — 
^\  ho,  conceiving  the  Universe  to  be  made  for  himself  alone,  is 
most  insensible  to  the  rights  and  interests  of  other  men.  It  is 
in  fact  because  he  is  so  unfurnished  with  the  ideas  of  justice, 
that  he  is  so  unbridled  in  resentment.  Justice  views  the  world 
and  all  its  interests  as  already  partitioned  among  the  various 
members  of  the  human  population,  each  occupying  his  own 
little  domain  ;  and,  instead  of  permitting  anger  to  expatiate  at 
random  over  the  universal  face  of  things,  justice  would  curb 
and  over-rule  its  ebullitions  in  the  bosom  of  every  indi\idual, 
till  a  trespass  was  made  within  the  limits  of  that  territory  which 
is  properly  and  peculiarly  his  own.  In  other  words,  it  is  the 
office  of  this  virtue,  not  to  inspire  anger,  but  to  draw  landmarks 
and  limitations  around  it ;  and,  so  far  from  a  high  moral  prin- 
ciple originating  this  propensity,  it  is  but  an  animal  propensity, 
restrained  and  kept  within  check  and  confinement  at  the  bidding 
of  principle. 

9.  The  distinction  between  reflective  and  unreflective  anger 
did  not  escape  the  notice  of  the  sagacious  Butler,  as  may  be 
seen  in  the  following  passages  of  a  sermon  upon  resentment. — 
"  Resentment  is  of  two  kinds — hasty  and  sudden,  or  settled  and 
deliberate.  The  former  is  called  anger  and  often  passion, 
wliich,  though  a  general  word,   is  frequently  appropriated  and 


116        ADAPTATIONS  OF  EXTERNAL  NATURE  TO 

confined  to  the  particular  feeling,  sudden  anger,  as  distinct  from 
deliberate   resentment  malice  and  revenge."     "  Sudden  anger 
upon  certain  occasions  is  mere  instinct,  as  merely  so,  as  the 
disposition  to  close  our  eyes  upon  the  apprehension  of  some- 
thing  falling   into   them,  and  no  more  necessarily  implies  any 
degree  of  reason.     I  say  necessarily,  for,  to  be  sure,  hasty  as 
well  as  deliberate  anger,  may  be  occasioned  by  injury  or  con- 
tempt,  in  which  cases  reason  suggests  to  our  thoughts  the  in- 
jury and  contempt  which  is  the  occasion  of  the  emotion  :   But 
I  am  speaking  of  the  former,  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  to  be  distin- 
guished from  the  latter.     The  only  way  in  which  our  reason 
and  understanding  can  raise  anger,   is  by  representing  to  our 
mind   an  injustice  or  injury  of  some  kind  or  other.     Now  mo- 
mentary anger  is  frequently  raised,  not  only  without  any  rule, 
but  without  any  reason  ;  that  is,  without  any  appearance  of  in- 
jury .;3  distinct  from  hurt  or  pain.     It  cannot,  I  suppose,  be 
thought  that  this  passion  in  infants  and  the  lower  species  of  ani- 
mals, and  which  is  often  seen  in  man  towards  them,  it  cannot,  I 
say,   be  imagined  that  these  instances  of  this  emotion  are  the 
effect  of  reason  :   no,  they  are  occasioned  by  mere  sensation 
and  feeling.     It  is  opposition,  sudden  hurt,  violence  which  na- 
turally excites  this  passion  ;    and  the  real  demerit  or  fault  of 
him  who  offers  that  violence,  or  is  the  cause  of  that  opposition 
or  hurt,  does  not  in  many  cases  so  much  as  come  into  thought." 
"  Tlie   reason  and  end  for  which  man  was  made  thus  liable  to 
this  emotion,  is  that  he  might  be  better  qualified  to  prevent,  and 
likewise  or  perhaps   chiefly  to  resist  and  defeat  sudden  force, 
violence,  and  opposition,  considered  merely  as  such,  and  with- 
out  regard  to-  the  fault  or  demerit  of  him  who  is  the  author  of 
them ;  yet  since  violence  may  be  considered  in  this  other  and 
further  view,  as  implying  fault,  and  since  injury  as  distinct  from 
harm  may  raise  sudden  anger,  sudden  anger  may  likewise  acci- 
dentally serve  to  prevent  or  remedy  such  fault  and  injury.     ]:ut 
considered  as  distinct  from  settled  an^er,  it  stands  in  our  nature 
for  self-defence,  and  not  for  the  administration  of  justice.     Tlicie 
are  plainly  cases,  and  in  the  uncultivated  parts  of  the  world,  m.d 
v/here  regular  governments  are  not  formed,  they  frequently  hai)- 
peii,  in  which  there  is  no  time  for  considering,  and  yet  to  be 
passive  is  certain  destruction,  in  which  sudden  resistance  is  the 
only  security." — It  is  an  exceeding  good  instance  that  Bishop 
Butler  gives  of  the  distinction  between  instinctive  and  what  may 
be  called  rational  anger,  when  he  speciiies  the  anger  that  we 
often  feel  towards  the  inferior  animals.     There  is  properly  no 
injury  done,  where  there  is  no  injury  intended.     And  he  who  is 
incapable  of  conceiving  what  an  injury  is,  is  not  a  rightful  ob- 


THE    MORAL    CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  117 

ject  for  at  least  any  moral  resentment.     But  that  there  is  what 
may  be  called  a  physical  as  well  as  a  moral  resentment,  is  quite 
!  palpable  from  the  positive  wrath  which  is  felt  when  any  thing 
i  untoward  or  hurtful  is  done  to  us  even  by  the  irrational  crea- 
:  tures.     The  men  who  use  them  as  instruments  of  service  often 
!  discharge  the  most  outrageous  wrath  upon  them — acting   the 
part  of  ferocious  tyrants  towards  these  \Metched  victims  of  their 
'.  cruelty.     When  a  combat  takes  place  between  man  and  one  of 
]  the  inferior  animals,  there  is  a  resentment  felt  by  the  former  just 
i  as  keen  and  persevering,  as  if  it  were  between  two  human  com- 
batants.    This  makes  it  quite  obvious  that  there  may  be  anger 
I  without  any  sense  of  designed  injury  on  the  part  of  him  who  is 
the  object  of  it.     Even  children,  idiots,  lunatics,  might  all  be 
the  objects  of  such  a  resentment. 

10.   The  final  cause  of  this  emotion  in  the  inferior  animals  is 
abundantly  obvious.     It  stimulates  and  ensures  resistance  to 
that  violence,  which,   if  not  resisted,    would    often   terminate 
I  in  the  destruction  of  its  object.     And  it  probably  much  oftener 
serves  the  purpose  of  prevention  than  of  defence.     The  first 
demonstration  of  a  violence  to  be  offered  on  the  one  hand,  when 
met  by  the  preparation  and  the  counter-menace  of  an  incipient 
resentment  on  the  other,  not  only  repels  the  aggression  after  it 
has  begun,  but  still  more  frequently,  we  believe,  through  the  re- 
action and  restraint  of  fear  on  the  otherwise  attacking  party, 
prevents  the  aggression  from  being  made.     The  stout  and  for- 
midable antagonists  eye  each  other  with  a  sort  of  natural  re- 
spect ;  and,  as  if  by  a  common  though  tacit  consent,  wisely 
abstain  on  either  side  from  molestation,  and  pass  onward  with- 
out a  quarrel.     It  is  thus  that  many  a  fierce  contest  is  forborne, 
which,  but  for  the  operation  of  anger  on  the  one  side  and  fear 
upon  the  other,  would  most  certainly  have  been  entered  upon. 
And  so  by  a  system,  or  machinery  of  reciprocal  checks  and 
counteractives,  and  where  the  mental  affections  too  perform  the 
part  of  essential  forces,  there  is  not  that  incessant  warfare  of 
extermination  Mhich  might  have  depopulated  the  world.     And 
here  we  might  observe,  that,  in  studying  that  balance  of  powers 
and  of  preserving  influences,  which  obtains  even  in  a  common- 
wealth of  brutes,  the  uses  of  a  mental  are  just  as  palpable  as 
those  of  a  material  collocation.     The  anger  which  prompts  to 
the  resistance  of  aggression  is  as  obviously  inserted  by  the  hand 
I  of  a  contriver,  as  are  the  horns  or  the  bristles  or  any  other  de- 
fensive weapons  where^^^th  the  body  of  the  animal  is  furnished. 
The  fear  which  wings  the  flight  of  a  pursued  animal  is  as  ob- 
j  viously  intended  for  its  safety,  as  is  its  nuscular  conformation 
or  capacity  for  speed.     The  affection  of  a  mother  for  her  young 


118       ADAPTATIONS  OF  EXTERNAL  NATURE  TO 

points  as  intelligibly  to  a  designer's  care  for  the  preservation  of 
the  species,  as  does  that  apparatus  of  nourishment  wherewith 
nature  hath  endowed  her.  The  mother's  fondness  supplies  as 
distinct  and  powerful  an  argument  as  the  mother's  milk — or,  in 
other  words,  a  mental  constitution  might,  as  well  as  a  physical 
constitution,  be  pregnant  with  the  indications  of  a  God. 

11.  But  to  return  to  the  special  affection  of  anger,  with  a  re- 
ference more  particularly  to  its  worldng  in  our  own  species, 
where  we  have  the  advantage  of  nearer  and  distincter  observa- 
tion.    We  must  be  abundantly  sensible  of  the  pain  which  there 
is,  not  merely  in  the  feeling  of  resentment,  v/hen  it  burns  and 
festers  within  our  own  hearts,  but  also  in  being,  the  objects  of 
another's  resentment.     They  are  not  the  effects  only  of  his  anger 
that  we  are  afraid  of;  we  are  afraid  of  the  anger  itself,  of  but 
the  looks  and  the  words  of  angry  violence,  though  we  should  be 
perfectly  secure  from  all  the  deeds  of  violence.     The  simple 
displeasure  of  another  is  formidable,  though  no  chastisement  - 
whatever  shall  follow  upon  it.     We  are  so  constituted,,  that  we 
tremble  before  the  frown  of  an  oflended  countenance,  and  per- 
haps as  readily  as  we  would  under  the  menace  of  an  uplifted 
arm  ;  and  would  often  make  as  great  a  sacrifice  to  shun  the 
moral  discomfort  of  another's  wrath,  as  to  shun  the  physical  in- 
fliction which  his  wrath  might  impel  him  to  lay  upon  us.     It  is 
thus  that  where  there  is  no  strength  for  any  physical  infliction, 
still  there  may  be  a  power  of  correction  that  amply  makes  up 
for  it,  in  the  rebuke  of  an  indignant  eye  or  an  indignant  \oice. 
This  goes  far  to  repair  the  inequalities  of  muscular  force  emiong 
men  ;  and  forms  indeed  a  most  important  mound  of  defence 
against  the  effervescence  and  the  outbreakings  of  brute  violence 
in  society.     It  is  incalculable  how  much  we  owe  to  this  influ- 
ence for  the  peace  and  courteousness  that  obtain  in  every  neigh- 
bourhood.    The  more  patent  view  of  anger  is,  that  it  is  an  in- 
strument of  defence  aixainst  the  aoffressions  of  violence  or  in- 
justice  ;   and  by  which  they  are  kept  in  check,  from  desolating, 
as  they  otherwise  would,  the  face  of  society.     But  it  not  only 
operates  as  a  corrective  against  the  outrages  that  are  actually 
made.     It  has  a  preventive  operation  also  ;   and  we  are  wholly 
unable  to  say,  in  how  far  the  dread  of  its  forth-breaking,  serves 
to  soften  and  to  subdue  human  intercourse  into  those  many 
thousand  decencies  of  mutual  forbearance  and  complaisance, 
by  which  it  is  gladdened  and  adorned.     There  is  a  recoil  from 
anger  in  the  heart  of  every  man  when  directed  against  liimself ; 
and  many  who  would  disdain  to  make  one  sacrifice  by  which  to 
appease  it,  after  it  had  thrown  down  the  gauntlet  of  hostility,  will 
in  fact  make  one  continued  sacrifice  of  their  tone  and  manner 


THE    MORAL    CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  119 

and  habit,  that  it  may  not  be  awakened  out  of  its  slumbers.  It 
were  difficult  to  compute  how  much  we  are  indebted,  for  the 
blandness  and  the  amenity  of  human  companionships,  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  so  many  sleeping  fires,  in  readiness  to  blaze  forth, 
at  the  touch  or  on  the  moment  of  any  provocation  being  offered. 
We  dou])t  not,  that,  in  military  and  fashionable,  and  indeed  in 
all  society,  it  acts  as  a  powerful  restraint  on  every  thing  that  is 
offensive.  The  domineering  insolence  of  those  v.ho,  with  the 
instrument  of  anger  too,  would  hold  society  in  bondage,  is  most 
effectually  arrested,  when  met  by  an  anger  which  throws  back 
the  fear  upon  themselves,  and  so  quiets  and  composes  all  their 
violence.  It  is  thus  that  a  balance  is  maintained,  without  which 
human  society  might  go  into  utter  derangement ;  and  without 
which  too,  even  the  animal  creation  might  lose  its  stability  and 
disappear.  And  there  is  a  kind  of  moral  power  in  the  anger 
itself,  that  is  separate  from  the  animal  or  the  physical  strength 
which  it  puts  into  operation ;  and  which  invests  with  command, 
or  at  least  provides  with  defensive  armour  those  who  would 
otherwise  be  the  most  helpless  of  our  species — so  that  de- 
crepid  age  or  feeble  womanhood  has  by  the  mere  rebuke  of  an 
angry  countenance  made  the  stoutest  heart  to  tremble  before 
them.  It  is  a  moral  force,  by  which  the  inequalities  of  muscu- 
lar force  are  repaired  ;  and,  while  itself  a  firebrand  and  a  de- 
stroyer, yet,  by  the  very  terror  of  its  ravages,  which  it  diffuses 
among  all,  were  it  to  stalk  abroad  and  at  large  over  the  world — 
does  it  contribute  to  uphold  the  pacific  virtues  among  men. 

12.  When  the  ano;er  of  one  individual  in  a  household  is  the 
terror  of  the  rest,  then  that  individual  may  become  the  little  des- 
pot of  the  establishment ;  and  thus  it  is  that  often  the  feeblest 
of  them  all  in  muscular  strength  may  wield  a  domestic  tyranny 
by  which  the  stoutest  is  overpowered.  But  when  the  anger  of 
this  one  is  fortunately  met  by  the  spirit  and  resolution  of 
another,  then,  kept  at  bay  with  its  own  weapon,  it  is  neu- 
tralized into  a  state  of  innocence.  It  is  not  necessary  for  the 
production  of  this  effect,  that  the  parties  ever  should  have  come 
to  the  extremity  of  an  open  and  declared  violence.  If  there  be 
only  a  mutual  consciousness  of  each  other's  energy  of  passion 
and  of  purpose,  then  a  mutual  awe  and  mutual  forbearance  may 
be  the  result  of  it.  And  thus  it  is,  that,  by  the  operation  of 
these  reciprocal  checks  in  a  family,  the  peace  and  order  of  it 
may  be  securely  upholden.  We  have  witnessed  how  much  a 
wayward  and  outrageous  temper  has  been  sweetened,  by  the 
very  presence  in  the  same  mansion,  of  one  who  could  speak 

I  again,  and  would  not  succumb  to  any  unreasonable  violence. 
The  violence  is  abated.     And  we  cannot  compute  how  much  it 


120       ADAPTATIONS  OF  EXTERNAL  NATURE  TO 

is  that  the  blandness  and  the  mutual  complaisance  which  obtain 
in  society,  are  due  to  the  secret  dread  in  which  men  stand  of 
each  other's  irritation ;  or,  in  other  words,  little  do  we  know  to 
what  extent,  the  smile  and  the  courteousness  and  the  urbanity 
of  civilized  life,  that  are  in  semblance  so  many  expressions  of 
human  benevolence,  may,  really  and  substantially,  be  owing  to 
the  fears  of  human  selfishness.  Were  this  speculation  pursued, 
it  might  lead  to  a  very  humiliating  estimate  indeed  of  the  virtue 
of  individuals — though  we  cannot  but  admire  the  wisdom  of  that 
economy,  by  wliich,  even  without  virtue,  individuals  may  be 
made,  through  the  mutual  action  and  reaction  of  their  emotions, 
to  form  the  materials  of  a  society  that  can  stand.  Anger  does 
in  private  life,  what  the  terrors  of  the  penal  code  do  in  the  com- 
munity at  large.  It  acts  with  salutary  influence,  in  a  vast  mul- 
tiplicity of  cases,  which  no  law  could  possibly  provide  for ;  and 
where  the  chastisements  of  law,  whether  in  their  corrective  or 
preventive  influence,  cannot  reach.  The  good  of  a  penal  dis- 
cipline in  society  extends  far  and  wide  beyond  the  degree  in 
which  it  is  actually  inflicted  ;  and  many  are  the  pacific  habits  of 
a  neighbourhood,  that  might  be  ascribed,  not  to  the  pacific  vir- 
tues of  the  men  who  compose  it,  but  to  the  terror  of  those  con- 
sequences which  all  men  know  would  ensue  upon  their  violation. 
'And  it  is  just  so  of  anger,  in  the  more  frequent  and  retired  in- 
tercourse of  private  life.  The  good  which  it  does  by  the  feai 
of  its  ebullitions  is  greater  far  than  all  which  is  done  by  the 
actual  ebullitions  themselves.  But  we  cannot  fail  to  perceive 
that  the  amount  of  service  which  is  done  in  this  way  to  t»he  spe- 
cies at  large,  must  all  be  regarded  as  a  deduction  from  the 
amount  of  credit  which  is  due  to  the  individuals  who  belong  to 
it.  We  have  already  remarked  on  the  propensity  of  moralists 
to  accredit  the  wisdom  of  man  with  effects,  which,  as  being  pro- 
vided for  not  by  any  care  or  reflection  of  ours,  but  by  the  ope- 
ration of  constitutional  instincts — are  more  properly  and  imme- 
diately to  be  ascribed  to  the  wisdom  of  God.  And  in  like  man- 
ner, there  is  a  propensity  in  moralists  to  accredit  the  wisdom  of 
man  with  effects,  which,  as  being  provided  for  not  by  any  con- 
sciousness or  exercise  of  principle  on  our  part,  but  by  the  opera- 
tion still  of  constitutional  instincts — are  more  properly  and 
immediately  to  be  ascribed  to  the  goodness  of  God.* 

*  The  following  extract  from  Brown  tends  well  to  illustrate  one  of  the  final  causes 
for  the  implantatiyon  of  this  principle  in  our  constitution. — "  What  human  wants  re- 
quired, that  all-foreseeing  Power,  who  is  the  guardian  of  our  infirmities,  has  supplied 
to  human  weakness.  There  is  a  principle  in  our  mind,  which  is  to  us  like  a  constant 
protector,  which  may  slumber,  indeed,  but  which  slumbers  only  at  seasons  when  its 
vigilance  would  be  useless,  which  awakes  therefore,  at  the  first  appearance  of  unjust 
intention,  and  which  becomes  more  watchful  and  more  vigorous,  in  proportion  to  the 


THE    MORAL    CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  121 

13.  There  is  another  special  affection  which  we  feel  more  par- 
ticularly induced  to  notice,  from  its  palpable  effect  in  restraining 
the  excess  of  one  of  nature's  strongest  appetites.  Its  position  in 
the  mental  system  reminds  one  of  the  very  obvious  adaptation  to 
each  other  of  the  antagonist  muscles  in  anatomy.  We  allude  to 
the  operation  of  shame  between  the  sexes,  considered  as  a 
check  or  counteractive  to  the  indulgence  of  passion  between  the 
sexes.  The  former  is  as  clear  an  instance  of  moral,  as  the  lat- 
ter is  of  physical  adaptation.  And  in  their  adjustment  the  one 
to  the  other,  we  observe  that  sort  of  exquisite  balancing,  which, 
perhaps  more  than  any  thing  else,  indicates  the  wisdom  and  the 
hand  of  a  master — as  if  when,  in  the  execution  of  some  very  nice 
and  difficult  task,  he  is  managing  between  contraiy  extremes,  or 
is  devising  in  just  proportion  for  contrary  interests.  We  might 
better  comprehend  the  design  of  tliis  strikingly  peculiar  mechan- 
ism, by  imagining  of  the  two  opposite  instincts,  that  either  of 
them  was  in  excess,  or  either  of  them  in  defect.  Did  the  con- 
stitutional modesty  prevail  to  a  certain  conceivable  extent — it 
might  depopulate  the  world.  Did  the  animal  propensity  prepon- 
derate, on  the  other  hand — it  might  land  the  world  in  an  anarchy 
of  unblushing  and  universal  licentiousness — to  the  entire  break- 
ing up  of  our  present  blissful  economy,  by  which  society  is  par- 
titioned into  sepai'ate  families  ;  and,  with  the  interests  of  domestic 
life  to  provide  for,  and  its  affections  continually  to  recreate  the 
heart  in  the  midst  of  anxieties  and  labours,  mankind  are  kept  in 
a  state  both  of  most  useful  activity  and  of  greatest  enjoyment. 
We  cannot  conceive  a  more  skilful,  we  had  almost  said  a  more 
delicate  or  dexterous  adjustment,  than  the  one  actually  fixed  upon 
— by  which,  in  the  first  instance,  through  an  appetency  suffi- 
ciently strong  the  species  is  upholden ;  and,  in  the  second  in- 

violence  of  the  attack  which  it  has  to  dread.  What  should  we  think  of  the  provi- 
dence of  nature,  if,  when  aggression  was  threatened  against  the  weak  and  unarmed, 
at  a  distance  from  the  aid  of  others,  there  were  instantly  and  uniformly,  by  the  inter- 
vention of  some  wonder-working  power,  to  rush  into  the  hand  of  the  defenceless  a 
sword  or  other  weapon  of  defence  ?  And  yet  this  would  be  but  a  feeble  assistance, 
if  compared  \vith  that  which  we  receive  from  the  simple  emotions  which  Heaven  has 
caused  to  rush,  as  it  were,  into  our  mind  for  repelling  every  attack.  What  would  be 
a  sword  in  the  trembling  hand  of  the  infirm,  of  the  aged,  of  him  whose  pusillanimous 
spirit  shrinks  at  the  very  appearance,  not  of  danger  merely,  but  even  of  the  arms  by 
the  use  of  which  danger  might  be  averted,  and  to  whom  consequently,  the  very 
sword,  which  he  scarcely  knew  how  to  grasp,  would  be  an  additional  cause  of  terror, 
not  an  instrument  of  defence  and  safety  ?  The  instant  anger  wjiich  arises  does 
more  than  many  such  weapons.  It  gives  the  spirit,  which  knows  how  to  make  a  wea- 
pon of  every  thing,  or,  which  of  itself  does,  without  a  weapon,  what  even  a  thunder- 
bolt would  be  powerless  to  do,  in  the  shuddering  grasp  of  the  coward.  When  anger 
arises,  fear  is  gone  ;  there  is  no  coward,  for  all  aro  brave.  Even  bodily  infirmity  seems 
to  yield  to  it,  like  the  very  infirmities  of  the  mind.  The  old  are,  for  the  moment, 
young  again;  the  weakest,  vigorous."  Lect.  Ixiii. 
11 


122        ADAPTATIONS  OF  EXTERNAL  NATURE  TO 

stance,  through  the  same  appetency  sufficiently  restrained,  those 
hallowed  decencies  of  life  are  kept  unviolate,  which  are  so  indis- 
pensable to  all  order  and  to  all  moral  gracefulness  among  men. 
We  have  only  to  conceive  the  frightful  aspect  which  society  would 
put  on,  did  unbridled  licentiousness  stalk  at  large  as  a  destroyer, 
and  rifle  every  home  of  those  virtues  which  at  once  guard  and 
adorn  it.  The  actual  and  the  beautiful  result,  when  viewed  in 
connexion  with  that  moral  force,  by  the  insertion  of  which  in  our 
nature  it  is  accomplished,  strongly  bespeaks  a  presiding  intellect 
— which  in  framing  the  mechanism  of  the  human  mind,  had  re- 
spect to  what  was  most  beneficent  and  best  for  the  mechanism 
of  human  society. 

14.  It  is  well  that  man  is  so  much  the  creature  of  a  constitu- 
tion which  is  anterior  to  his  own  wisdom  and  his  own  will,  and  of 
circumstances  which  are  also  anterior  to  liis  wisdom  and  his  will. 
It  would  have  needed  a  far  more  comprehensive  view  than  we  are 
equal  to,  both  of  what  was  best  for  men  in  a  community  and  for 
man  as  an  individual,  to  have  left  a  creature  so  short-sighted  or 
of  such  brief  and  narrow  survey,  with  the  fixing  either  of  his  own 
principles  of  action  or  of  his  relation  with  the  external  world. 
That  constitutional  shame,  that  quick  and  trembling   delicacy,  a 
prompt  and  ever-present  guardian,  appearing  as  it  does  in  verv 
early  childhood,  is  most  assuredly  not  a  result  from  any  anticipa- 
tion by  us,  either  of  future  or  distant  consequences.     Even  the 
moral  sense  within  us,  does  not  speak  so  loudly  or  so  distinctly 
the  evil  of  this  transgression,  as  it  does  of  falsehood,  or  of  inju- 
rious freedom  with  the  property  of  a  neighbour,  or  of  personal 
violence.     Other  forces  than  those  of  human  prudence  or  human 
principle  seem  to  have  been  necessary,  for  resisting  a  most  pow- 
erful and  destructive  fascination,  which  never  is  indulged,  without 
deterioration  to  the  whole  structure  of  the  moral  character  and  con- 
stitution ;   and  which,  when  once  permitted  to  loid  it  over  the 
habits,  so  often  terminates  in  the  cruel  disruption  of  families,  and 
the  irretrievable  ruin  and  disgrace  of  the  offender.     It  is  not  by 
any  prospective  calculation  of  ours,  that  this  natural  modesty,  act- 
ing as  a  strong  precautionary  check  against  evils  which  however 
tremendous,  we  are  too  heedless  to  reflect  upon,  has  been  estab- 
lished within  us.     It  is  directly  implanted  by  one,  who  sees  the 
end  from  the  beginning  ;  and  so  forms  altogether  a  most  palpable 
instance,  in  which  we  have  reason  to  congratulate  ourselves,  that 
the  well-being  of  man,  instead  of  being  abandoned  to  himself,  has 
been  placed  so  immediately  under  the  management  of  better  and 
higher  hands. 

15.   There  are  many  other  special  affections  in  our  nature — 
the  principal  of   which  will  fall    to    be   noticed  in  succeeding 


THE    MORAL    CONSTITUTION    OF  MAN.  123" 

chapters  ;  and  the  interests  to  which  they  are  respectively  sub- 
servient form  a  natural  ground  of  division,  in  our  treatment  of 
them.  Certain  of  these  atfections  stand  related  to  the  civil, 
and  certain  of  them  to  the  economic  well-being  of  society  ;  and 
each  of  these  subserviencies  will  form  the  subject  of  a  sepa- 
rate argument. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

On    those  sjyecial  Jlffections  which  conduce  lo  the  civil  and 
jjolitical   Well-being  of  Socielij. 

1.  The  first  step  towards  the  aggregation  of  men  into  a 
community,  or  the  first  departure  from  a  state  of  perfect  isola- 
tion, could  that  state  ever  have  subsisted  for  a  single  day,  is 
the  patriarchal  arrangement.  No  sooner  indeed  is  the  infant 
creature  ushered  into  being,  than  it  is  met  by  the  cares  and 
the  caresses  of  those  who  are  around  it,  and  who  have  either 
attended  or  welcomed  its  entry  on  this  scene  of  existence — 
as  if,  in  very  proportion  to  the  extremity  of  its  utter  helpless- 
ness, was  the  strength  of  that  seciu-ity  which  nature  hath  pro- 
vided, in  the  workings  of  the  human  constitution,  for  the  pro- 
tection of  its  weakness  and  the  supply  of  all  its  little  wants. 
That  there  should  be  hands  to  receive  and  to  manage  this 
tender  visitant,  is  not  more  obviously  a  benevolent  adaptation, 
than  that  there  should  be  hearts  to  sympathise  v/ith  its  cries 
of  impotency  or  distress.  The  maternal  aflection  is  as  ex- 
j)ress  an  instance  of  this  as  the  maternal  nourishment — nor  is 
the  inference  at  all  weakened,  by  the  attempts,  even  though  they 
should  be  successful,  of  those  v,ho  would  demonstrate  of  this 
universal  fondness  of  mothers,  that,  instead  of  an  original  in 
stiiict,  it  is  but  a  derived  or  secondary  law  of  our  nature.  Were 
that  analysis  as  distinct  and  satisfactory  as  it  is  doubtful  and 
obscure,  which  would  resolve  all  mental  phenomena  into  the 
single  principle  of  association — still  the  argument  would  stand. 
A  secondary  law,  if  not  the  evidence  of  a  distinct  principle^  re- 
(juires  at  least  distinct  and  peculiar  circumstances  for  its  de- 
velopement ;  and  the  right  ordering  of  these  for  a  beneficial 
result,  is  just  as  decisively  the  proof  and  the  characteristic  of 
a  plan,  as  are  the  collocations  of  Anatomy.  It  might  not  have 
been  necessary  to  endow  matter  with  any  new  property  for  the 
preparation  of  a  child's  aliment  in  the   breast  of  its  mother — - 


124  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

yet  the  frame- work  of  that  very  peculiar  apparatus  by  which  the 
milk  is  secreted,  and  the  suckling's  mouth  provided  with  a  duct 
of  conveyance  for  the   abstraction  of  it,  is,  in  the  many  fit- 
nesses of  time  and  place  and  complicated  arrangement,  preg- 
nant with  the  evidence  of  a  designer's  contrivance  and  a  de- 
signer's care.     And  in  like  manner,  though  it  should  be  estab- 
hshed,  that  the  affection  of  a  mother  for  her  young  from  the 
moment   of  their  birth,  instead  of  an  independent  principle  in 
her  nature,  was  the  dependent  product  of  remembrances   5.nd 
feelings  which  had  accumulated    during  the  period  of   gesta- 
tion, and  were  at  length  fixed,  amidst  the  agonies  of  parturi- 
tion, into  the  strongest  of  all  her  earthly  regards — the  argu- 
ment for  design  is  just  as  entire,  though,  instead  of  connecting 
it  with  the   pecuharity  of  an  original  law,  we  connect  it  with 
the  pecuharity  of  those  circumstances  which  favor  the  develope- 
ment  of  this  maternal  feeling,  in  the  form  of  a  secondary  law. 
There  is  an  infinity  of  conceivable  methods,  by  which  the  succes- 
sive generations  of  men  might  have  risen  into  being  ;  and  our  ar- 
gument is  entire,  if,  out  of  these,  that  method  has  been  selected, 
whereof  the  result  is  an  intense  affection  on  the  part  of  mo- 
thers for  their  offspring.     It  matters  not  whether  this  universal 
propensity  of  theirs  be  a  primary  instinct  of  nature,  or  but  a 
resulting  habit  which  can  be  traced  to  the  process  which  they  have 
been  actually  made   to  undergo,  or  the  circumstances  in  which 
they  have  actually  been  placed.     The  ordination  of  this  pro- 
cess, the  mandate  for  the  assemblage  and  collocation  of  these 
circumstances,    gives    as    distinct    and    decisive    indication  of 
an  ordaining  mind,  as  would  the  establishment  of  any  peculiar 
law.     Let  it  suffice  once  for  all  to  have  said  this — for  if  in 
the  prosecution  of  our  inquiry,  we  stopped  at  every  turn  to  enter- 
tain the  question,  whether  each  beneficial   tendency  on  which 
we  reasoned,  were  an  original  or  only  a  secondary  principle  in 
nature — we  should    be    constantly    rushing    uncalled  into    the 
mists  of  obscurity  ;  and  fastening  upon  our  cause  an  element  of 
doubt  and  weakness,  which  in  no  wise  belongs  to  it. 

2.  The  other  affections  which  enter  into  the  composition,  or 
rather,  form  the  cement  of  a  family,  are  more  obviously  of  a  de- 
rivative, and  less  obviously  of  an  instinctive  character,  than  is 
that  strong  maternal  affinity  which  meets  so  opportunely  with 
the  extreme  helplessness  of  its  objects,  that  but  for  the  succour 
and  sympathy  of  those  whose  delight  it  is  to  cherish  and  sustain 
them,  would  perish  in  the  infancy  of  their  being.  However 
questionable  the  analysis  might  be,  which  would  resolve  the 
universal  fondness  of  mothers  for  their  young  into  something  an- 
terior— the  paternal  and  brotherly  and  filial  affections  seem,  on 


WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  125 

surer  grounds,  and  which  arc  accessible  to  observation,  not  to 
be  original  but  originated  feehngs.  Inquirers,  according  to  their 
respective  tastes  and  tendencies,  have  deviated  on  both  sides 
of  the  evidence — that  is,  either  to  an  excessive  and  hypothetic 
simplification  of  nature,  or  to  an  undue  multiplication  of  her  first 
principles.  And  certain  it  is,  that  when  told  of  the  mystic  ties 
which  bind  together  into  a  domestic  community,  as  if  by  a  sort 
of  certain  peculiar  attraction,  all  of  the  same  kindred  and  the 
same  blood — we  are  reminded  of  those  occult  qualities,  which, 
in  the  physics  both  of  matter  and  of  mind,  afforded  so  much  of 
entertainment,  to  the  scholastics  of  a  former  age.  But  with  the 
adjustment  of  this  philosophy  we  properly  have  no  concern.  It 
matters  not  to  our  argument  whether  the  result  in  question  be 
due  to  the  force  of  instincts  or  to  the  force  of  circumstances, — 
any  more  than  whether  in  the  physical  system,  a  certain  benefi- 
cial result  may  be  ascribed  to  apt  and  peculiar  laws,  or  to  apt 
and  peculiar  collocations.  In  virtue  of  one  or  other  or  both  of 
these  causes,  we  behold  the  individuals  of  the  species  grouped 
together — or,  as  it  may  be  otherwise  expressed,  the  aggregate 
mass  of  the  species,  broken  asunder  into  distinct  families,  and 
generally  living  by  themselves,  each  family  imder  one  common 
roof,  but  apart  from  all  the  rest  in  distinct  habitations  ;  while  the 
members  of  every  little  commonwealth  are  so  linked  by  certain 
atTections,  or  by  certain  feelings  of  reciprocal  obligation,  that 
each  member  leels  almost  as  intensely  for  the  wants  and  suffer- 
ings of  the  rest  as  he  would  for  his  own,  or  labours  as  strenuously 
for  the  sustenance  of  all  as  he  would  for  his  own  individual  suste- 
nance. There  is  very  geucLally  a  union  of  hearts,  and  still 
oftiiner  a  union  of  hands,  lor  the  common  interest  and  provision 
of  the  household. 

3.  The  benefits  of  such  an  arrangement  arc  too  obvious  to  be 
enumerated.  Even  though  the  law  of  self-preservation  had  suf- 
lii-ed  in  those  cases  where  the  individual  has  adequate  wisdom  to 
devise,  and  adecpiate  strength  to  provide  for  his  own  mainte- 
nance— of  itself,  it  could  not  have  availed,  when  this  strength  and 
thirj  wisdom  are  wanting.  It  is  in  the  bosom  of  families,  and 
under  the  touch  and  imj)ulse  of  family  aHcctions,  that  helpless 
infancy  is  nurtured  into  manhood,  and  hol[)less  disease  or  age 
have  the  kindliest  and  most  efl'ectivc  succour  aflbrded  to  them. 
fOven  when  the  strength  for  labour,  instead  of  being  confined  to 
one,  is  slmred  among  several  of  the  household,  there  is  often  an 
incalculable  benefit,  in  the  very  concert  of  their  forces  and  com- 
munity of  their  gams — so  long,  for  example,  as  a  brotherhood, 
yet  advancing  towards  maturity,  continue  to  live  under  the  same 
roof,  and  to  live  under  the  direction  of  one  authority,  or  by  the 
11* 


126  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

movement  of  one  will.  We  shall  not  expatiate,  either  on  the 
enjoyment  that  might  be  had  under  such  an  economy,  while  it 
lasts,  in  the  sweets  of  mutual  affection  ;  or  minutely  explain  how, 
after  the  economy  is  dissolved,  and  the  separate  members  betake 
themselves  each  to  his  own  way  in  the  world — -the  duties  and  the 
friendships  of  domestic  life  are  not  annihilated  by  this  dispersion  ; 
but,  under  the  powerful  influence  of  a  felt  and  acknowledged  re- 
lationship, the  affinities  of  kindred  spread  and  multiply  beyond 
their  original  precincts,  to  the  vast  increase  of  mutual  sympathy 
and  aid  and  good  offices  in  general  society.  It  will  not,  we  sup- 
pose, be  questioned — that  a  vastly  greater  amount  of  good  is 
done  by  the  instrumentality  of  others,  and  that  the  instrumenta- 
lity itself  is  greatly  more  available,  under  the  family  system,  to 
which  we  are  prompted  by  the  strong  affections  of  nature,  than  if 
that  system  were  dissolved.  But  the  remarkable  thing  is,  that 
these  affections  had  to  be  provided,  as  so  many  impellent  forces — 
guiding  men  onward  to  an  arrangement  the  most  prolific  of  ad- 
vantage for  the  whole,  but  which  no  care  or  consideration  of  the 
general  good  would  have  led  them  to  form.  This  provision  for 
the  wants  of  the  social  economy,  is  analogous  to  that,  which  we 
have  already  observed,  for  the  wants  of  the  animal  ecovAiny. 
Neither  of  these  interests  was  confided  to  any  cold  generality, 
whether  of  principle  or  prudence.  In  the  one,  the  strong  appetite 
of  hunger  supplements  the  deficiency  of  the  rational  principle  of 
self-preservation.  In  the  other,  the  strong  family  affections 
supplement  the  deficiency  of  the  moral  principle  of  general  be- 
nevolence. Without  the  first,  the  requisite  measures  would  not 
have  been  taken  for  the  regular  sustenance  of  the  individual. 
Without  the  other,  the  requisite  measures  would  not  have  been 
taken  for  the  diffused  sustenance  of  the  community  at  large. 

4.  Such  is  the  mechanism  of  human  society,  as  it  comes  di- 
rect, from  the  hand  of  nature  or  of  nature's  God.  But  many 
have  been  the  attempts  of  human  wisdom  to  mend  and  to  med- 
dle with  it.  Cosmopolitism,  in  particular,  has  endeavoured  to 
substitute  a  sort  of  universal  citizenship,  in  place  of  the  family 
affections — regarding  these  as  so  many  disturbing  forces  ;  be- 
cause, operating  only  as  incentives  to  a  partial  or  particular  be- 
nevolence, they  divert  the  aim  from  that  which  should,  it  is  con- 
tended, be  the  object  of  every  enlightened  philanthropist,  the 
general  and  greatest  good  of  the  whole.  It  is  thus  that  certain 
transcendental  speculafists  would  cut  asunder  all  the  special 
affinities  of  our  nature,  in  order  that  men,  set  at  large  from  the 
ties  and  the  duties  of  the  domestic  relationship,  might  be  at  liberty 
to  prosecute  a  more  magnificent  and  god-like  career  of  virtue  ; 
and,  in  every  single  action,  have  respect,  not  to  the  well-being 


WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  127 

of  the  individual,  but  to  the  well-being  of  the  species.     And  thus 
also,  friendship  and  patriotism  have  been  stigmatized,  along  with 
the  family  affections,  as  so  many  narrow  minded- virtues,  which, 
by  their  distracting  influence,  seduce  men  from  that  all-compre- 
hensive virtue,  whose  constant  study  being  the  good  of  the  world 
— a  happy  and  regenerated  world,  it  is  the  fond  imagination  of 
some,  would  be  the  result  of  its  universal  prevalence  among  men. 
5.  Fortunately,  nature  is  too  strong  for  this  speculation,  which, 
therefore,  has  only  its  full  being,  in  the  reveries  or  the  pages  of 
those  who,  in  authorship,  may  well  be  termed  the  philosophical 
novelists  of  our  race.     But,  beside  the  actual  strength  of  those 
special  propensities  in  the  heart  of  man,  which  no  generalization 
can  overrule,  there  is  an  utter  impotency  in  human  means  or 
human  expedients,  for  carrying  this  hollow,  this  heartless  gene- 
ralization into  effect.     It  is  easy  to  erect  into  a  moral  axiom,  the 
principle  of  greatest  happiness  ;  and  then,  on  the  strength  of  it, 
to  denounce  all  the  special  atTections,  and  propose  the  substitu- 
tion of  a  universal  affection  in  their  place.     But  in  prosecuting 
the  object  of  this  last  affection,  what  specific  and  intelligible  thing 
are  they  to  do  ?  How  shall  they  go  about  it  ?  What  conventional 
scheme  shall  men  fall  upon  next  for  obtaining  the  maximum  of 
utility,  after  they  have  broken  loose,  each  from  his  own  little 
home,  and  have  been  emancipated  from  those  intense  regards, 
which  worked  so  effectively  and  with  such  force  of  concentration 
there  ?    It  has  never  been  clearly  shown,  how  the  glorious  sim- 
plifications of  those  cosmopolites  admit  of  being  practically  re- 
alized— whether  by  a  combination,  of  which  the  chance  is  that 
all  men  might  not  agree  upon  it ;  or  by  each  issuing  quixotically 
forth  of  his  own  habitation,  and  labouring  (he  best  he  may  to 
realize  the  splendid  conception  by  which  he  is  fired  and  actuated. 
And  it  does  not  occur  to  those  who  would  thus  labour  to  extir- 
pate the  special  affections  from  ovu-  nature,  that  it  is  in  the  indul- 
gence of  them  that  all  conceivable  happiness  lies  ;   and  that,  in 
being  bereft  of  them,  we  should  be  in  truth  bereft  of  all  the  means 
and  materials  of  enjoyment.     And  there  is  the  utmost  diflerence 
in  point  of  eflect,  as  well  as  in  point  of  feeling,  between  the  strong 
love  wherewith  nature  hath  endued  us  for  a  few  particular  men, 
and  the  general  love  wherewith  philosophers  would  inspire  us 
for  men  in  the  abstract — the  former  philanthropy  leading  to  a  de- 
voted and  sustained  habit  of  well  directed  exertion,  for  supi)lying 
the  wants  and  multiplying  the  enjoyments  of  every  separate 
household ;  the  latter  philanthropy,  at  once  indefinite  in  its  aim 
,  and  intangible  in  its  objects,  overlooking  every  man  just  because 
charging  itself  with  the  oversight  of  all  men.     It  is  by  a  summa- 
tion of  particular  ufilities  which  each  man,  under  the  impulse  of 


128  AFFECTIONS    WHiCIi    CONDUCE    TO 

his  own  particular  affections,  contributes  to  the  general  good, 
that  nature  provides  for  the  happiness  of  the  world.  But  ambi- 
tious and  aspiring  man  would  take  the  charge  of  this  happiness 
upon  himself;  and  his  first  step  would  be  to  rid  the  heart  of  all 
its  special  affections — or,  in  other  words,  to  unsettle  the  moral 
dynamics  which  nature  hath  established  there,  without  any  other 
moral  dynamics,  either  of  precise  direction  or  of  operative  force, 
to  establish  in  their  room.  After  having  paralized  all  the  ordi- 
nary principles  of  action,  he  would,  in  his  newly  modelled  sys- 
tem of  humanity,  be  able  to  set  up  no  principle  of  action  what- 
ever. His  v^isdom,  when  thus  opposed  to  the  wisdom  of  nature, 
is  utterly  powerless  to  direct,  however  much,  in  those  seasons 
of  delusion  when  the  merest  nonentities  and  names  find  a  tem- 
porary sway,  it  may  be  powerful  to  destroy. 

6.  Now  there  is  nothing  which  so  sets  off  the  superior  skill  of 
one  a.tist,  as  the  utter  failure  of  every  other  artist  in  his  attempts 
to  improve  upon  it.  And  so  the  failure  of  every  philanthropic  or 
political  experiment  v»'hich  proceeds  on  the  distrust  of  nature's 
strong  and  urgent  and  general  affections,  may  be  regarded  as  an 
impressive  while  experimental  demonstration  for  the  matchless 
vvisdom  of  nature's  God.  The  abortive  enterprises  of  wild  \et 
benevolent  Utopianism  ;  the  impotent  and  hurtful  schemes  of 
aj-tiiicial  charity  which  so  teem  throughout  the  cities  and  parishes 
of  our  land  ;  the  pernicious  legislation,  which  mars  instead  of 
medicates,  whenever  it  intermeddles  with  the  operations  of  a  pre- 
vious and  betttr  mechanism  than  its  own — have  all  of  them  mis- 
given only  because,  instead  of  conforming  to  nature,  they  have 
tried  to  divert  her  from  her  courses,  or  have  thwarted  and  tra- 
versed the  strongest  of  her  implanted  tendencies,  it  is  thus  that 
every  attempt  for  taking  to  pieces,  whether  totally  or  partially, 
the  actual  frame-work  of  society,  and  reconstructing  it  in  a  new 
w-ay  or  on  new  principles — is  altogether  fruitless  of  good  ;  and 
often  fruitful  of  sorest  evil  both  to  the  happiness  and  virtue  of  the 
commonwealth.  That  economy  by  Avhich  the  family  system 
would  have  been  entirely  broken  up  ;  and  associated  m.en,  living 
together  in  planned  and  regulated  villages,  would  have  labourcil 
for  the  common  good,  and  given  up  their  children  wholly  undo- 
mesticated  to  a  common  education — could  not  have  been  carried 
into  effect,  without  overbearing  the  parental  affection,  and  other 
strong  propensities  of  nature  besides  ;  and  so,  it  was  stifled  in 
embryo,  by  the  instant  revolt  of  nature  against  it.  That  legisla- 
tion, which,  instead  of  overbearing,  would  but  seduce  nature  from 
her  principles,  may  subsist  for  generations — yet  not  without  such 
distemper  to  society,  as  may  at  leng'th  amount  to  utter  disor- 
ganization.    And  ihia  is  precisely  the  mischief  which  the  pau- 


WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  129 

perism  of  England  hath  inflicted  on  the  habits  of  English  taniilies. 
It  hath,  by  the  most  pernicious  of  all  bribery,  relaxed  the  ties  and 
obligations  of  mutual  relationship — exonerating  parents  on  the 
one  hand  from  the  caie  and  maintenance  of  their  own  offspring  ; 
and  tempting  children  on  the  other  to  cast  off  the  parents  who 
gave  them  birth,  and,  instead  of  an  asylum  gladdened  by  the  as- 
sociations and  sympathies  of  home,  consigning  them  for  the  last 
closing  years  of  w  eakness  and  decrepitude  to  the  dreary  impri- 
sonment of  a  poor  house.  Had  the  beautiful  arrangements  of 
nature  not  been  disturbed,  the  relative  affections  which  she  her- 
self has  implanted  would  have  been  found  strong  enough,  as  in 
other  countries,  to  have  secured,  through  the  means  of  a  do- 
mestic economy  alone,  a  provision  both  for  young  and  old,  in 
far  greater  unison  with  both  the  comfort  and  the  virtue  of  fami- 
lies. The  corrupt  and  demoralizing  system  of  England  might 
well  serve  as  a  lesson  to  philanthropists  and  statesmen,  of  the 
hazard,  nay  of  the  positive  and  undoubted  mischief,  to  which  the 
best  interests  of  humanity  are  exposed — when  they  traverse  the 
processes  of  a  better  mechanism  instituted  by  the  wisdom  of  God, 
through  the  operation  of  another  mechanism  devised  by  a  wis- 
dom of  their  own. 

7.  And  those  family  relations  in  which  all  men  necessarily 
find  themselves  at  the  outset  of  life,  serve  to  strengthen,  if  they 
do  not  originate  certain  other  subsequent  affections  of  wider 
operation,  and  which  bear  with  most  important  effect  on  the  state 
and  security  of  a  commonwealth.  Each  man's  house  may  be 
regarded  as  a  preparatory  school,  where  he  acquires  in  boyhood, 
those  habits  of  subordination  and  dependence  and  reverence  for 
superiors,  by  which  he  all  the  more  readily  conforms  in  after-life, 
to  the  useful  gradations  of  rank  and  authority  and  wealth  which 
obtain  in  the  order  of  general  society.  We  are  aware  of  a  cos- 
mopolitism that  would  unsettle  those  principles  which  bind  to- 
gether the  larger  commonwealth  of  a  state  ;  and  that  too  with 
still  greater  force  and  frequency,  than  it  would  unsettle  those 
affections  which  bind  together  the  little  commonwealth  of  a 
family.  It  is  easier  to  undermine  in  the  hearts  of  subjects,  their 
reverence  for  rank  and  station ;  than  it  is  to  dissolve  the  ties  of 
parentage  and  brotherhood,  or  to  denaturalize  the  hearts  of  chil- 
dren. Accordingly  we  may  remember  those  seasons,  when,  in 
the  form  of  what  may  be  termed  a  moral  epidemic,  a  certain 
spirit  of  lawlessness  went  abroad  upon  the  land  ;  and  the  minds 
of  men  were  set  at  large  from  the  habit  of  that  homage  and  re- 
spect, which  in  more  pacific  times,  they,  without  pusillanimity 
and  in  spite  of  themselves,  do  render  to  family  or  fortune  or  office 
in  society.     We  know  that  in  specific  instances,  an  adequate 


130  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE   TO 

cause  is  too  often  given  why  men  should  cast  off  that  veneration 
for  rank  by  which  they  are  naturally  and  habitually  actuated —  , 
as,  individually,  when  the  prince  or  the  noble,  however  elevated, 
may  have  disgraced  himself  by  his  tyranny  or  his  vices ;  or, 
generally,  when  the  patrician  orders  of  the  state  may  have  en- 
tered into  some  guilty  combination  of  force  and  fraud  against  the 
liberties  of  mankind,  and  outraged  nature  is  called  forth  to  a 
generous  and  wholesome   re-action  against  the  oppressors  of 
their  species.     This  is  the  revolt  of  one  natural  principle  against 
the  abuse  of  another.     But  the  case  is  very  different — when,  in- 
stead of  an  hostility  resting  on  practical  grounds  and  justified  by 
the  abuses  of  a  principle,  there  is  a  sort  of  theoretical  yet  withal 
virulent  and  inflamed  hostility  abroad  in  the  land  against  the 
principle  itself — when  wealth  and  rank  without  having  abused 
their  privileges,  are  made  j)er  se  the  objects  of  a  jealous  and 
resentful  malignity — when  the   people  all  reckless   and  agog, 
because  the  dupes  of  designing  and  industrious  agitators,  have 
been  led  to  regard  every  man  of  afl^uence  or  station  as  their 
natural  enemy — and  when,  with  the  bulk  of  the  community  in 
this  attitude  of  stout  and  sullen  defiance,  authority  is  weakened 
and  all  the  natural  influences  of  rank  and  wealth  are  suspended. 
Now  nature  never  gives  more  effectual  demonstration  of  her 
wisdom,  than  by  the  mischief  which  ensues  on  the  abjuration  of 
her  own  principles  ;  and  never  is  the  lesson  thus  held  forth  more 
palpable  and  convincing,  than  when  respect  for  station  and  re- 
spect for  office  cease  to  be  operating  principles  in  society.    We 
are  abundantly  sensible  that  both  mighty  possessions  and  the 
honours  of  an  industrious  ancestry  may  be  disjoined  from  indi- 
vidual talent  and  character, — nay,  that  they  may  meet  in  the 
person  of  one  so  utterly  weak  or  worthless,  as  that  our  reverence 
because  of  the  adventitious  circumstanx^es  in  which  he  is  placed, 
may  be  completely  overborne  by  our  contempt  either  for  the 
imbecility  or  the  moral  turpitude  by  which  he  is  deformed.     But 
this  is  only  the  example  of  a  contest  between  two  principles,  and 
of  a  victory  by  the  superior  over  the  inferior  one.     We  are  not, 
however,  because  of  the  inferiority  of  a  principle  to  lose  sight  of 
its  existence  ;   or  to  betray  such  an  imperfect  discernment  and 
analysis  of  the  human  mind,  as  to  deny  the  reality  of  any  one 
principle,  because  liable  to  be  modified,  or  kept  in  check,  or 
even  for  the  time  rendered  altogether  powerless,  by  the  interpo- 
sition and  the  conflict  of  another  principle.     If,  on  the  one  hand, 
rank  may  be  so  disjoined  from  righteousness  as  to  forfeit  all  its 
claims  to  respect — on  the  other  hand,  to  be  convinced  that  these 
claims  are  the  objects  of  a  natural  and  universal  acknowledg- 
ment, and  have  therefore  a  foundation  in  the  actual  constitution 


THE    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  131 

of  human  nature,  let  us  only  consider  the  effect,  when  pre-emi- 
nent rank  and  pre-eminent  or  even  but  fair  and  ordinary  righ- 
teousness, meet  together  in  the  person  of  the  same  individual. 
The  effect  of  such  a  composition  upon  human  feelings  may  well 
persuade  us  that,  while  a  respect  for  righteousness  admitted  by 
all  enters  as  one  ingredient,  a  respect  for  rank  has  its  distinct 
and  substantive  being  also  as  another  ingredient.     We  have  the 
former  ingredient  by  itself  in  a  state  of  separation,  and  are 
therefore  most  sensible  of  its  presence,  when  the  object  of  con- 
templation is  a  virtuous  man.     But  we  are  distinctly  sensible  to 
the  superaddition  of  the  latter  ingredient,  when,  instead  of  a  vir- 
tuous man,  the  object  of  contemplation  is  a  virtuous  monarch — 
though  it  becomes  more  palpable  still,  when  it  too  is  made  to 
exist  in  a  state  of  separation,  \\hich  it  does,  when  the  monarch 
is  neither  hateful  for  his  vices  nor  very  estimable  for  his  virtues  ; 
but  stands  forth  in  the  average  possession  of  those  moralities 
and  of  that  intellect  which  belong  to  common  and  every  day 
humanity.     Even  such  a  monarch  has  only  to  appear  among  his 
subjects  ;   and,  in  all  ordinary  times,  he  will  be  received  with 
the  greetings  of  an  honest  and  heartfelt  loyalty,  while  any  mi- 
wonted  progress  through  his  dominions  is  sure  to  be  met  all 
over  the  land,  by  the  acclamations  of  a  generous  enthusiasm. 
E^en  the  sturdiest  demagogue,  if  he  come  within  the  sphere  of 
the  royal  presence,  cannot  resist  the  infection  of  that  common 
sentiment  by  which  all  are  actuated  ;  but,  as  if  struck  with  a 
moral  impotency,  he  also,  carried  away  by  the  fascination,  is 
constrained  to  feel  and  to  acknowledge  its  influence.     Some 
there  are,  v»ho  might  affect  to  despise  human  nature  for  such  an 
exhibition,  and  indignantly  exclaim  that  men  are  born  to  be 
slaves.     But  the  truth  is,  that  there  is  nothing  prostrate,  nothing 
pusillanimous  in  the  emotion  at  all.     Instead  of  this,  it  is  a  lofty 
chivalrous  emotion,  of  which  the  most  exalted  spirits  are  the 
most  susceptible,  and  which  all  might  indulge  without  any  for- 
feiture of  their  native  or  becoming  dignitv.     We  do  not  affirm 
of  this  respect  either  for  the  sovereignty  of  an  empire,  or  for  the 
chieftainship  of  a  province — that  it  forms  an  original  or  consti- 
tuent part  of  our  nature.     It  is  enough  for  our  argument,  if  it 
be  a  universal  result  of  the  circumstances  in  every  land,  where 
such  gradations  of  power  and  property  are  established.     In  a 
word,  it  is  the  doing  of  nature,  and  not  of  man ;  and  if  man,  in 
the  proud  and  presumptuous  exercise  of  his  own  wisdom,  shall 
lift  his  rebel  hand  against  the  wisdom  of  nature,  and  try  to  up- 
root this  principle  from  human  hearts — he  will  find  that  it  cannot 
be  accomplished,  without  tearing  asunder  one  of  the  strongest 
of  those  ligaments,  which  bind  together  the  component  parts  of 


132  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO  V 

human  society  into  a  harmonious  and  well-adjusted  mechanism. 
And  it  is  then  that  the  msdom  wliich  made  nature,  will  demon- 
strate its  vast  superiority  over  the  wisdom  which  would  mend 
it — when  the  desperate  experiment  of  the  latter  has  been  tried 
and  found  wanting.  There  are  certain  restraining  forces  (and 
reverence  for  rank  and  station  is  one  of  them)  which  never  so 
convincingly  announce  their  own  importance  to  the  peace  and 
stability  of  the  commonwealth,  as  in  those  seasons  of  popular 
frenzy,  when,  for  a  time,  they  are  slackened  or  suspended.  For 
it  is  then  that  the  vessel  of  the  state,  as  if  shpped  from  her 
moorings,  drifts  headlong  among  the  surges  of  insurrectionary 
violence,  till,  as  the  effect  of  this  great  national  effervescence, 
the  land  mourns  over  its  ravaged  fields  and  desolated  families  ; 
when,  after,  the  sweeping  anarchy  has  blown  over  it,  and  the 
sore  chastisement  has  been  undergone,  the  now  schooled  and 
humbled  people  seek  refuge  anew  in  those  very  principles, 
which  they  had  before  traduced  and  discarded  :  And  it  will  be 
fortunate  if,  when  again  settled  down  in  the  quietude  of  their 
much  needed  and  much  longed-for  repose,  there  be  not  too 
vigorous  a  re-action  of  those  conservative  influences,  which,  in 
the  moment  of  their  wantonness,  they  had  flung  so  recklessly 
away — in  virtue  of  which  the  whips  may  become  scorpions,  and 
the  mild  and  well-balanced  monarchy  may  become  a  grinding 
despotism. 

8.  Next  to  the  wisdom  which  nature  discovers  in  her  implan- 
tation or  developement  of  those  affections,  by  which  society  is 
parcelled  down  into  separate  families  ;  is  the  wisdom  v/hich  she 
discovers  in  those  other  affections,  by  which  the  territory  of  a 
nation,  and  all  upon  it  that  admits  of  such  a  distribution,  is  like- 
wise parcelled  and  broken  off  into  separate  properties.  Both 
among  the  analysts  of  the  human  mind,  and  among  metaphy- 
sical jurists  and  politicians,  there  is  to  be  found  much  obscure 
and  unsatisfactory  speculation  respecting  those  principles,  whe- 
ther elementary  or  complex,  by  which  property  is  originated  and 
by  which  property  is  upholden.  We  are  not  called  to  enter 
upon  any  subtle  analysis  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  either 
what  that  is  which  gives  birth  to  the  possessory  feeling  on  the 
part  of  an  owner,  or  what  that  is  which  leads  to  such  a  universal 
recognition  and  respect  for  his  rights  in  general  society.  It 
will  be  enough  if  we  can  evince  that  neither  of  these  is  a  facti- 
tious product,  devised  by  the  wisdom  or  engendered  by  the  au- 
thority of  patriots  and  legislators,  deliberating  on  what  was  best 
for  the  good  and  order  of  a  community  ;  but  that  both  of  them  are 
the  results  of  a  prior  wisdom,  employed,  not  in  framing  a  con- 
stitution  for  a  state,  but  in  framing  a  constitution  for  human 


THE    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  133 

nature.  It  will  suffice  to  demonstrate  this,  if  we  can  show,  that, 
in  very  early  childhood,  there  are  germinated  both  a  sense  of 
property  and  a  respect  for  the  property  of  others  ;  and  that,  long 
before  the  children  have  been  made  the  subjects  of  any  artificial 
training  on  the  thing  in  question,  or  are  at  all  capable  of  any 
anticipation,  or  even  wish,  respecting  the  public  and  collective 
well-being  of  the  country  at  large.  Just  as  the  affection  of  a 
mother  is  altogether  special,  and  terminates  upon  the  infant, 
without  any  calculation  as  to  the  superiority  of  the  family  system 
over  the  speculative  systems  of  the  cosmopolites ;  and  just  as 
the  appetite  of  hunger  impels  to  the  use  of  food,  without  the 
least  regard,  for  the  time  being,  to  the  support  or  preservation 
of  the  animal  economy — so,  most  assuredly,  do  the  desires  or 
notions  of  property,  and  even  the  principles  by  which  it  is  limited, 
spring  up  in  the  breasts  of  children,  without  the  slightest  appre- 
hension, on  their  part,  of  its  vast  importance  to  the  social  economy 
of  the  world.     It  is  the  provision,  not  of  man,  but  of  God. 

9.   That  is  my  property,  to  the  use  and  enjoyment  of  which  I, 
without  the  permission  of  others,  am  free,  in  a  manner  that  no 
other  is  ;  and  it  is  mine  and  mine  only,  in  as  far  as  this  use  and 
enjoyment  are  limited  to  myself — and  others,  apart  from  any 
grant  or  permission  by  me,  are  restrained  from  the  like  use  and 
the  like  enjoyment.     Now  the  first  tendency  of  a  child,  instead 
of  regarding  only  certain  things,  as  those  to  the  use  and  enjoy- 
ment of  which  it  alone  is  free,  is  to  regard  itself  as  alike  free 
to  the  use  and  enjoyment  of  all  things.     We  should  say  that  it 
regards  the  whole  of  external  nature  as  a  vast  common,  but  for 
this  difference — that,  instead  of  regarding  nature  as  free  to  all, 
it  rather  regards  it  as  free  to  itself  alone.     When  others  inter- 
meddle with  any  one  thing,  in  a  way  that  suits  not  its  fancy  or 
pleasure,  it  resents  and  storms  and  exclaims  like  one  bereft  of 
its  rights — so  that,  instead  of  regarding  the  universe  as  a  com- 
mon, it  were  more  accurate  to  say,  that  it  regarded  the  whole  as 
its  own  property,  or  itself  as  the  universal  proprietor  of  all  on 
which  it  may  have  cast  a  pleased  or  a  wishful  eye.     Whatever 
it  grasps,  it  feels  to  be  as  much  its  own  as  it  does  the  fingers 
which  grasp  it.     And  not  only  do  its  claims  extend  to  all  within 
its  reach,  but  to  all  within  the  field  of  its  vision — insomuch,  that 
it  will  even  stretch  forth  its  hands  to  the  moon  in  the  firmament ; 
and  wreak  its  displeasure  on  the  nurse,   for  not  bringing  the 
splendid  bauble  within  its  grasp.     Instead  then  of  saying,  that, 
at  this  particular  stage,  it  knows  not  how  to  appropriate  any 
thing,  it  were  more  accurate  to  say,  that  a  universal  tyrant  and 
monopolist,  it  would  claim  and  appropriate  all  things — exacting 
from  the  whole  of  nature  a  subserviency  to  its  caprices  ;  and, 
12 


134  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

the  little  despot  of  its  establishment,  giving  forth  its  intimations 
and  its  mandates,  with  the  expectation,  and  often  with  the  real 
power  and  authority  of  instant  obedience.  We  before  said  that 
its  anger  was  coextensive  with  the  capacity  of  sensation  ;  and 
we  now  say  that,  whatever  its  rectified  notion  of  property  may 
be,  it  has  the  original  notion  of  an  unlimited  range  over  which 
itself  at  least  may,  expatiate,  without  let  or  contradiction — the 
self-constituted  proprietor  of  a  domain,  wide  as  its  desires,  and 
on  which  none  may  interfere  against  its  will,  without  awakening 
in  its  bosom,  somewhat  like  the  sense  and  feeling  of  an  injuri- 
ous molestation.* 

10.  And  it  is  instructive  to  observe  the  process,  by  which 
this  original  notion  of  property  is  at  length  rectified  into  the  sub- 
sequent notion,  which  obtains  in  general  society.  For  this  pur- 
pose we  must  enquire  what  the  circumstances  are  which  limit 
and  determine  that  sense  of  property,  which  was  quite  general 
and  unrestricted  before,  to  certain  special  things,  of  which  the 
child  learns  to  feel  that  they  are  peculiarly  its  own — and  that 
too,  in  a  manner  which  distinguishes  them  from  all  other  things, 
which  are  not  ?o  felt  to  be  its  own.  The  child  was  blind  to 
any  such  distinction  before — its  first  habit  being  to  arrogate  and 
monopolize  all  things  ;  and  the  question  is,  what  those  circum- 
stances are,  which  serve  to  signalize  some  things,  to  which,  its 
feelings  of  property,  now  withdrawn  from  wide  and  boundless 
generality,  are  exclusively  and  specifically  directed.  It  will 
make  conclusively  for  our  argument,  if  it  shall  appear,  that  this 
sense  of  property,  even  in  its  posterior  and  rectified  form,  is  the 
work  of  nature,  operating  on  the  hearts  of  children  ;  and  not  the 
work  of  man,  devising,  in  the  maturity  of  his  political  wisdom, 
such  a  regulated  system  of  things,  as  might  be  best  for  the  order 
and  well  being  of  society. 

11.  This  matter  then  might  be  illustrated  by  the  contests  of 
very  young  children,  and  by  the  manner  in  which  these  are 
adjusted  to  the  acquiescence  and  satisfaction  of  them  all.  We 
might  gather  a  lesson  even  from  the  quarrel  which  sometimes 
a/ises  among  them,  about  a  matter  so  small  as  their  right  to  the 

+  From  what  has  been  already  said  of  resentment,  it  would  appear,  that  the  in- 
stinctive feeling  of  property,  and  instinctive  anger  arc  in  a  state  of  co-relation  with 
ea^'h  other.  It  is  by  offence  being  rendered  to  the  former,  that  the  latter  is  called 
foilh.  Anterior  to  a  sense  of  justice,  our  disposition  is  to  arrogate  every  tiling — and 
it  is  then  that  we  are  vulnerable  to  anger  from  all  points  of  the  compass.  Let 
another  meddle,  to  our  anoyance,  with  any  thing  whatever,  at  this  early  stage,  and 
we  shall  feel  the  very  emotion  of  anger,  which  in  a  higher  stage  of  moral  and  mental 
cultivation,  is  only  called  forth  by  its  meddling  with  that  which  really  and  rightfully 
belongs  to  us.  The  sense  of  justice,  instead  of  originating  either  the  emotion  of 
anger,  or  a  sense  of  property,  has  the  effect  to  limit  and  restrain  both. 


THE    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  135 

paiticular  chairs  of  a  room.  If  one  for  example,  have  just  sat 
on  a  chair,  though  only  for  a  few  minutes,  and  then  left  it  for  a 
moment — it  will  feel  itself  injured,  if,  on  returning,  it  shall  find 
the  chair  in  the  possession  of  another  occupier.  The  brief 
occupation  which  it  has  already  had,  gives  it  the  feeling  of  a 
right  to  the  continued  occupation  of  it — insomuch,  that,  when 
kept  out  by  an  intruder,  it  has  the  sense  of  having  been  wrong- 
ously  dispossessed.  The  particular  chair  of  which  it  was  for 
some  time  the  occupier,  is  the  object  of  a  special  possessory 
affection  or  feeling,  which  it  attaches  to  no  other  chair  ;  and  by 
which  it  stands  invested  in  its  own  imagination,  as  being,  for  the 
time,  the  only  rightful  occupier.  This  then  may  be  regarded  as 
a  very  early  indication  of  that  possessory  feeling,  which  is  after- 
wards of  such  extensive  influence  in  the  economy  of  social  life — 
a  feeling  so  strong,  as  often  of  itself  to  constitute  a  plea,  not  only 
sufficient  in  the  apprehension  of  the  claimant,  but  sufficient  in  the 
general  sense  of  the  community,  for  substantiating  the  right  of 
many  a  proprietor. 

12.  But  there  is  still  another  primitive  ingredient  which  enters 
iiito  this  feeling  of  property ;  and  we  call  it  primitive,  because 
anterior  to  the  sanctions  or  the  application  of  law.  Let  the  child 
in  addition  to  the  plea  that  it  had  been  the  recent  occupier  of  the 
chair  in  question,  be  able  further  to  advance  in  argument  for  its 
right — that,  with  its  own  hands,  it  had  just  placed  it  beside  the 
fire,  and  thereby  given  additional  value  to  the  occupation  of  it. 
This  reason  is  both  felt  by  the  child  itself,  and  will  be  admitted 
by  other  children  even  of  a  very  tender  age,  as  a  strengthener  of 
its  claim.  It  exemplifies  the  second  great  principle  on  which 
the  natural  right  of  property  rests — even  that  every  man  is  pro- 
prietor of  the  fruit  of  his  own  labour  ;  and  that  to  whatever  extent 
he  may  have  impressed  additional  value  on  any  given  thing  by 
the  work  of  his  own  hands,  to  that  extent,  at  least,  he  should  be 
held  (he  owner  of  it. 

13.  This  then  seems  the  way,  in  which  the  sense  of  his  right 
\)  any  given  thing  arises  in  the  heart  of  the  claimant ;  but  some- 
thing more  must  be  said  to  account  for  the  manner  in  which  this 
right  is  deferred  to  by  his  com})anions.  It  accounts  for  the 
manner,  in  which  the  possessory  feeling  arises  in  the  hearts  of 
one  and  all  of  thejn,  when  similarly  circumstanced  ;  but  it  does 
not  account  for  the  manner  in  whi(^.h  this  possessory  feeling,  in 
the  heart  of  each,  is  respected  by  all  his  fellows — so  that  he  is 
suffered  to  remain,  in  the  secure  and  unmolested  possession  of 
that  which  ho  rightfiilly  claims.  The  circumstances  which  ori- 
ginate the  sense  of  property,  serve  to  explain  this  one  fact,  the 
existence  of  a  possessory  feeling,  in  the  heart  of  every  individual 


N 


136  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

who  is  actuated  thereby.     But  the  deference  rendered  to  this 
feehng  by  any  other  individuals,  is  another  and  a  distinct  Tact  ^ 
and  we  must  refer  to  a  distinct  principle  from  that  of  the  mere 
sense  of  property,  for  the  explanation  of  it.     This  new  or  distinct 
principle  is  a  sense  of  equity — or  that  which  prompts  to  likeness 
or  equality,  between  the  treatment  which  I  should  claim  of  others 
and  my  treatment  of  them  ;  and  in  virtue  of  which,  I  should  hold 
it  unrighteous  and  unfair,  if  I  disregarded  or  inflicted  violence  on 
the  claim  of  another,  which,  in  the  same  circumstances  with  him, 
I  am  conscious  that  I  should  have  felt,  and  would  have  advanced 
for  myself.     Had  I  been  the  occupier  of  that  chair,  in  like  man- 
ner with  the  little  claimant  who  is  now  insisting  on  the  possession 
of  it,  I  should  have  felt  and  claimed  precisely  as  he  is  doing. 
Still  more,  had  I  like  him  placed  it  beside  the  fire,  I  should  have 
felt  what  he  is  now  expressing — a  still  more  distinct  and  decided 
right  to  it.     If  conscious  of  an  identity  of  feeling  between  me 
and  another  in  the   same  circumstances — then  let  mv  moral 
nature  be  so  far  evolved  as  to  feel  the  force  of  this  consideration  ; 
and,  under  the  operation  of  a  sense  of  equity,  I  shall  defer  to  the 
very  claim,  which  I  should  myself  have  urged,  had  I  been  simi- 
larly placed.     And  it  is  mai-vellous,  how  soon  the  hearts  of  chil- 
dren discover  a  sensibility  to  this  consideration,  and  how  soon 
they  are  capable  of  becoming  obedient  to  the  power  of  it.     It  is, 
in  fact,  the  principle  on  which  a  thousand  contests  of  the  nursery 
are  settled,  and  many  thousand  more  are  prevented ;  what  else 
would  be  an  incessant  scramble  of  rival  and  ravenous  cupidity, 
being  mitigated  and  reduced  to  a  very  great,  though  unknown 
and  undefinable  extent,  by  the  sense  of  justice  coming  into  play. 
It  is  altogether  worthy  of  remark,  however,  that  the  senfee  of 
property  is  anterior  to  the  sense  of  justice,  and  comes  from  an 
anterior  and  distinct  source  in  our  nature.     It  is  not  justice  v.hich 
originates  the  proprietary  feeling  in  the  heart  of  any  individual. 
It  only  arbitrates  between  the  proprietary  claims  and  feelings  of 
different  individuals — after  these  had  previously  arisen  by  the 
operation  of  other  principles  in  the  human  constitution.     Those 
writers  on  jurisprudence  are  sadly  and  inextricably  puzzled,  who 
imagine  that  justice  presided  over  the  first  ordinations  of  property 
— utterly  at  a  loss  as  they  must  be,  to  find  out  the  principle  that 
could  guide  her  initial  movements.     Justice  did  not  create  pro- 
perty ;   but  found  it  already  created — her  only  office  being  to 
decide  between  the  antecedent  claims  of  one  man  and  another : 
And,  in  the  discharge  of  this  office,  she  but  compares  the  rights 
which  each  of  them  can  alleoe,  as  founded  either  on  the  length 
of  undisputed  and  undisposed  of  possession,  or  on  the  value  they 
had  impressed  on  the  thing  at  issue  by  labour  of  their  own.     In 


THE    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  137 

other  words,  she  bears  respect  to  those  two  great  priini(i\  c  ingre- 
dients by  which  property  is  constituted,  before  that  she  had  ever 
bestowed  any  attention,  or  given  any  award  whatever  regarding 
it.  The  matter  may  be  ilhistrated  by  the  peciiHar  relation  in 
which  each  man  stands  to  his  own  body,  as  being,  in  a  certain 
view,  the  same  with  the  pecidiar  relation  in  which  each  man 
stands  to  his  own  property.  His  sensitive  feelings  are  hurt, 
by  the  infliction  of  a  neighbour's  violence  upon  the  one  ;  and 
his  proprietary  feelings  are  hurt  by  the  encroachment  of  a 
neighbour's  violence  upon  the  other.  But  justice  no  more 
originated  the  proprietary,  than  it  did  the  sensitive  feelings — no 
more  gave  me  the  peculiar  affection  which  I  feel  for  the  property 
I  now  occupy  as  my  own,  than  it  gave  me  my  peculiar  aflectiou 
for  the  person  v.'hich  I  now  occupy  as  my  own.  Justice  pro- 
nounces on  the  iniquity  of  any  hurtful  infliction  by  us  on  the 
person  of  another — seeing  that  such  an  infliction  upon  our  own 
person,  to  which  we  stand  similarly  related,  would  be  resented 
by  ourselves.  And  Justice,  in  like  manner,  pronounces  on  the 
inequality  or  iniquity  of  any  hurtful  encroachment  by  us  on  the 
property  of  another — also  seeing,  that  such  an  encroachment 
upon  oiu'  own  property,  to  which  we  stand  similarly  related, 
would  be  lelt  and  resented  by  ourselves.  Man  feels  one  kind 
of  pain,  when  the  hand  which  belongs  to  him  is  struck  by  another; 
1  lid  he  feels  another  kind  of  pain,  when  some  article  which  it 
holds,  and  which  he  conceives  to  belong  to  him,  is  wrested  by 
another  from  its  grasp.  But  it  was  not  justice  which  instituted 
either  the  animal  economy  in  the  one  case,  or  the  proprietary 
economy  in  the  other.  Justice  found  them  both  already  iusti- 
titted.  Property  is  not  the  creation  of  justice  ;  but  is  in  truth  a 
[)vior  creation.  Justice  did  not  form  this  material,  or  command 
it  into  being;  but  in  the  course  of  misunderstanding  or  contro- 
versy between  man  and  man,  property,  a  material  {)re-existent 
or  already  made,  forms  the  subject  of  many  of  those  questions 
which  are  put  into  her  hands. 

11.  But,  recurring  to  the  juvenile  controversy  which  we  have 
already  imagined  for  tbe  pur[)ose  of  illustration,  there  is  still  a 
third  way  in  which  we  may  conceive  it  to  be  conclusively  and 
delinitively  settled.  The  parents  may  interpose  their  authority, 
and  assign  his  own  particular  chair  to  each  member  of  the  house- 
hold. The  instant  efl'ect  of  such  a  decree,  in  fixing  and  distin- 
guishing the  respective  properties  in  all  time  coming,  h;is  led, 
we  believe,  to  a  misconception  regarding  the  real  origin  of  pro- 
perty— in  consequence  of  a  certain  obscure  analogy  between  this 
act  of  parents  or  legislators  over  the  family  of  a  household,  and 
a  supposed  act  of  rulers  or  legislators  over  the  great  family  of  a 
12* 


138  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

nation.  Now,  not  only  have  the  parents  this  advantage  over  the 
magistrates — that  the  property  which  they  thus  distribute  is  pre- 
viously their  own  ;  but  there  is  both  a  power  of  enforcement  and 
a  disposition  to  acquiescence  within  the  limits  of  a  home,  which 
exist  in  an  immeasurably  weaker  degree  within  the  limits  of  a 
kingdom.  Still,  with  all  this  superiority  on  the  part  of  the  house- 
hold legislators,  it  would  even  be  their  wisdom,  to  conform  their 
decree  as  much  as  possible  to  those  natural  principles  and  feel- 
ings of  property,  which  had  been  in  previous  exercise  among  their 
children — to  have  respect,  in  fact,  when  making  distribution  of 
the  chairs,  both  to  their  habits  of  previous  occupation,  and  to  the 
additional  value  which  any  of  them  may  have  impressed  upon 
their  favourite  seats,  by  such  little  arts  of  upholstery  or  me- 
chanics, as  they  are  competent  to  practice.  A  wise  domestic 
legislator  would  not  thwart,  but  rather  defer  to  the  claims  and  ex- 
pectations which  nature  had  previously  founded.  And  still  more 
a  national  legislator  or  statesman,  would  evince  his  best  wisdom, 
by,  instead  of  traversing  the  constitution  of  property  which  nature 
had  previously  established,  greatly  deferring  to  that  sense  of  a 
possessory  right,  which  long  and  unquestioned  occupation  so 
universally  gives  ;  and  greatly  deferring  to  the  principle,  that, 
whatever  the  fruit  of  each  man's  labour  may  be,  it  rightfully,  and 
therefore  should  legitimately  belong  to  him.  A  government  could, 
and  at  the  termination  of  a  revolutionary  storm,  often  does,  tra- 
verse these  principles  ;  but  not  w  ithout  the  excitement  of  a  thou- 
sand heai-t-burnings,  and  so  the  establishment  of  a  strong  coun- 
teraction to  its  ow  n  authority  in  the  heart  of  its  dominions.  It  is 
the  dictate  of  sound  policy — that  the  natural,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  legal  or  political  on  the  other,  should  quadrate  as  much 
as  possible.  And  thus,  instead  of  saying  with  Dr.  Paley  that 
property  derived  its  constitution  and  being  from  the  law  of  the 
land — we  should  say  that  law  never  exhibits  a  better  understand- 
ing of  her  own  place  and  functions,  than  when,  founding  on  ma- 
terials already  provided,  she  feels  that  her  wisest  part  is  but  to 
act  as  an  auxiliary,  and  to  ratify  that  prior  constitution  which  na- 
ture had  put  into  her  hands. 

15.  [n  this  exposition  which  we  have  now  attempted  of  the  ori- 
gin and  rights  of  property,  we  are  not  insensible  to  the  mighty 
use  of  law.  By  its  power  of  enforcement,  it  perpetuates  or  de- 
fends from  violation  that  existent  order  of  things  which  itself  had 
established,  or,  rather,  which  itself  had  ratified.  Even  though  at 
its  first  ordinations  it  had  contravened  those  natural  principles 
which  enter  into  the  foundation  of  property,  these  very  principles 
will,  in  time,  re-appear  in  favour  of  the  new  system,  and  yield  to 
it  a  firmer  and  a  stronger  support  witheverydayofits  continuance. 


THE    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  139 

Whatever  fraud  or  force  may  have  been  concerned  at  the  histori- 
cal commencement  of  the  present  and  actual  distribution  of  pro- 
perty— the  then  new  possessors  have  at  length  become  old  ;  and, 
under  the  canopy  and  protection  of  law,  the  natural  rights  have 
been  superadded  to  the  factitious  or  the  political.     Law  has  gua- 
ranteed to  each  proprietor  a  long  continued  occupation,  till  a 
strong  and  inveterate  possessory  feeling  has  taken  root  and  arisen 
in  every  heart.      And  secure  of  this  occu))ation,  each  may,  in  the 
course  of  years,  have  mixed  up  to  an  indelinite  amount,  the  im- 
provements of  his  own   skill  and  labour  with  those  estates — 
which,  as  the  fruit  whether  of  anarchy  or  of  victorious  invasion, 
had  fallen  into  his  hands.     So  that  these  first  and  second  prin- 
ciples of  natural  jurisprudence,  whatever  violence  may  have  been 
done  to  them  at  the  overthrow  of  a  former  regiine,  are  again  fos- 
tered into  all  their  original  efficacy  and  strength  during  the  con- 
tinuance of  a  present  one.     Insomuch,  that  if,  at  the  end  of  half 
a  century,  those  outcasts  of  a  great  revolutionary  hurricane,  the 
descendants  of  a  confiscated  noblesse,  were  to  rally  and  combine 
for  the  recovery  of  their  ancient  domains — they  would  be  met  in 
the  encounter,  not  by  the  force  of  the  existing  government  only, 
but  by  the  outraged  a.Md  resentful  feelings  of  the  existing  propri- 
etors,  whose  possessory  and  prescriptive  rights,  now  nurtured 
into  full  and  firm  establishment,  would,  in  addition  to   the  sense 
of  interest,  enhst  even  the  sense  of  justice  upon  their  side.  Apart 
from  the  physical,  did  we  but  compute  the  moral  forces  which 
enter  into  such  a  conflict,  it  will  often  be  found  that  the  superiority 
is  in  favour  of  the  actual  occupiers.     Those  feelings,  on  the  one 
hand,  which  are  associated  with  the  recollection  of  a  now  de- 
parted ancestry  and  their  violated  rights,  are  found  to  be  inoper- 
ative and  feeble,  when  brought  into  comparison  or  colfision  with 
that  strength  which  nature  has  annexed  to  the  feelings  of  actual 
possession.     Regarded  as  but  a  contest  of  senthnent  alone,  the 
disposition  to  recover  is  not  so  strong  as  the  disposition  to  retain. 
The  recollection  that  these  were  once  my  parental  acres,  though 
wrested  from  the  hand  of  remote  ancestors  by  anarchists   and 
marauders,  would  not  enlist  so  great  or  so  practical  a  moral  forco 
on  the  aggressive  side  of  a  new  warfare,  as  the  reflection  that 
these  are  now  my  possessed  acres,  which,  though  lef\  but  by  im- 
mediate ancestors,  I  have  been  accustomed  from  infancy  to  call 
my  own,  would  enlist  on  the  side  of  the  defensive.   In  the  course 
of  generations,  those  sedative  influences,  which  tend  to  the  pre- 
servation of  the  existing  order  wax  stronger  and  stronger ;  and 
those  disturbing  influences,  which  tend  to  the  restoration  of  the 
ancient  order,  wax  weaker  and  weaker — till  man  at  last  ceases 
to  charge  himself  with  a  task  so  infinitely  above  his  strength,  as 


140  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

the  adjustment  of  the  quarrels  and  the  accumulated  wrongs  of  the 
centuries  which  have  gone  by.  In  other  words,  the  constitution 
of  law  in  regard  to  property,  which  is  the  work  of  man,  may  l)e  so 
framed  as  to  sanction,  and,  therefore,  to  encourage  the  enormities 
which  have  been  perpetrated  by  the  force  of  arms — while  the 
constitution  of  the  mind  in  regard  to  property,  which  is  the  work 
of  nature,  is  so  framed,  as,  with  conservative  virtue,  to  be  alto- 
gether on  the  side  of  perpetuity  and  peace. 

16.  Had  a  legislator  of  supreme  wisdom  and  armed  with  des- 
potic power  been  free  to  establish  the  best  scheme  for  augmenting 
the  wealth  and  the  comforts  of  human  society — he  could  have  de- 
vised nothing  more  effectual  than  that  existing  constitution  of  pro- 
perty, which  obtains  so  generally  throughout  the  world  ;  and  by 
which,  each  man,  secme  within  the  limits  of  his  own  special  and 
recognized  possession,  might  claim  as  being  rightly  and  origin- 
ally his,  the  fruit  of  all  the  labour  which  he  may  choose  to  ex- 
pend upon  it.  But  this  v.as  not  left  to  the  discovery  of  man,  or 
to  any  ordinations  of  his  consequent  upon  that  discovery.  He 
was  not  led  to  this  arrangement  by  the  experience  of  its  cor;^ e- 
quences  ;  but  pronipted  to  it  by  certain  feelings,  as  muchprioi 
to  that  experience,  as  the  appetite  of  hunger  is  prior  to  our  ex- 
perience of  the  use  of  food.  In  this  matter,  too,  the  wisdom  of 
nature  has  anticipated  the  wisdom  of  man,  by  providing  him  with 
original  princijiles  of  her  own.  Man  was  not  left  to  find  out  the 
direction  in  which  his  benevolence  might  be  most  productive  of 
enjoyment  to  others  ;  but  he  has  been  irresistibly,  and,  as  far  as 
he  is  concerned,  blindly  impelled  thereto  by  nK^ans  of  a  family 
ufiection — which,  concentrating  his  eflorts  on  a  certain  few,  has 
made  them  a  hundred  times  more  prolific  of  benefit  to  mankind 
than  if  all  had  been  left  to  provide  the  best  they  may  for  the 
whole,  without  a  precise  or  determinate  impulse  to  any.  And 
in  like  manner,  man  was  not  left  to  find  out  the  direction  in 
which  his  industry  might  be  made  most  productive  of  the  mate- 
rials of  enjoyment ;  but,  with  the  efforts  of  each  concentrated  by 
means  of  a  special  possessory  affection  on  a  certain  portion  of 
the  territory,  the  universal  produce  is  incalculably  greater  than 
under  a  medley  s>'Stem  of  indifference,  with  every  field  alike 
open  to  all,  and,  therefore,  alike  unreclaimed  from  the  w  ilderness 
— unless  one  man  shall  consent  to  labour  it  in  seed  time,  although 
another  should  reap  the  fruit  of  his  labour  in  the  harvest.  It  is 
good  that  man  was  not  trusted  with  the  whole  disintanglemcnt 
of  this  chaos — but  that  a  natural  jurispiaidence,  founded  on  the 
constitution  of  the  human  mind,  so  far  advances  and  facilitates 
the  task  of  that  artificial  jurisprudence,  which  frames  the  various 
codes^  or  constitutions  of  human  law.     It  is  well  that  nature  has 


THE    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETV.  141 

connected  with  the  past  and  actual  possession  of  any  thing,  so 
strong  a  sense  of  right  to  its  continued  possession  ;  and  that  she 
has  so  powerfully  backed  this  principle,  by  means  of  another  as 
strongly  and  universally  felt  as  the  former,  even  that  each  man 
has  a  right  to  possess  the  fruit  of  his  own  industry.  The  human 
legislator  has  little  more  to  do  than  to  conform,  or  rather  to  pro- 
mulgate and  make  known  his  determination  to  abide  by  principles 
already  felt  and  recognized  by  all  men.  Wanting  these,  he 
could  have  fixed  nothing,  he  could  have  perpetuated  nothing. 
The  legal  constitution  of  every  state,  in  its  last  and  finished  form, 
comes  from  the  hand  of  man.  But  the  great  and  natural  prin- 
ciples, which  secure  for  these  constitutions  the  acceptance  of 
whole  communities — im})lanted  in  man  from  his  birth,  or  at  least 
evincing  their  presence  and  power  in  very  early  childhood — 
these  are  what  bespeak  the  immediate  hand  of  God. 

17.  But  these  principles,  strongly  conservative  though  they 
be,  on  the  side  of  existing  property  do  not  at  all  times  prevent  a 
revolution — which  is  much  more  frequently,  however,  a  revolu- 
tion of  power  than  of  property.  But  when  such  is  the  degree  of 
violence  abroad  in  society,  that  even  the  latter  is  effected — this 
most  assuredly,  does  not  arise  from  any  decay  or  intermission 
of  the  possessory  feelings,  that  we  have  just  been  expounding ; 
but  from  the  force  and  fermentation  of  other  causes  which  pre- 
vail in  opposition  to  these,  and  in  spite  of  them.  And,  after  that 
such  revolution  has  done  its  work  and  ejected  the  old  dynasty 
of  proprietors,  the  mischief  to  them  may  be  as  irrecoverable,  as 
if  their  estates  had  been  wrested  from  them,  by  an  irruption  from 
the  waters  of  the  ocean,  by  earthquake,  or  the  sweeping  resist- 
less visitation  of  any  other  great  physical  calamity.  The  moral 
world  has  its  epochs  and  its  transitions  as  well  as  the  natural, 
during  which  the  ordinary  laws  are  not  suspended  but  only  for 
the  time  overborne  ;  but  this  does  not  hinder  the  recurrence  and 
full  reinstatement  of  these  laws  during  the  long  eras  of  interme- 
diate repose.  And  it  is  marvellous,  with  what  certainty  and  speed, 
the  conservative  influences,  of  which  we  have  treated,  gather 
around  a  new  system  of  things,  with  whatever  violence,  and  even 
injustice,  it  may  have  been  ushered  into  the  world — insomuch 
that,  under  the  guardianship  of  the  powers  which  be,  those  links 
of  a  natural  jurisprudence,  now  irretrievably  torn  from  the  former, 
are  at  length  transferred  in  all  their  wonted  tenacity  to  the  exist- 
ing proprietors  ;  riveting  each  of  them  to  his  own  several  property, 
and  altogether  establishing  a  present  order  of  as  great  firmness 
and  strength  as  ever  belonged  to  the  order  a\  hich  went  before  it, 
but  which  is  now  superseded  and  forgotten.  It  is  well  that  nature 
hath  annexed   so  potent  a  charm  to  actual  possession ;  and  a 


142  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

charm  which  strengthens  with  every  year  and  day  of  its  continu- 
ance. This  may  not  efface  the  historical  infamy  of  many  ancient 
usurpations.  But  the  world  cannot  be  kept  in  a  state  of  perpe- 
tual effervescence  ;  and  now  that  the  many  thousand  wrongs  of 
years  gone  by,  as  well  as  the  dead  on  whom  they  have  been  in- 
llicted,  are  fading  into  deep  oblivion — it  is  well  for  the  repose  of 
its  living  generations,  that,  in  virtue  of  the  strong  possessory 
feelings  which  nature  causes  to  arise  in  the  hearts  of  existing 
proprietors  and  to  be  sympathized  with  by  all  other  men,  the 
possessors  de  facto  have  at  length  the  homage  done  to  them  of 
})ossessors  de  jure  ;  strong  in  their  own  consciousness  of  right, 
and  strong  in  the  recognition  thereof  by  all  their  contemporaries. 

18.  But  ere  we  have  completed  our  views  upon  this  subject, 
we  must  shortly  dwell  on  a  principle  of  very  extensive  application 
in  morals ;  and  which  itself  forms  a  striking  example  of  a  most 
beauteous  and  beneficent  adaptation  in  the  constitution  of  the 
human  mind  to  the  needs  and  the  well-being  of  human  society. 
It  may  be  thus  announced,  briefly  and  generally : — however  strong 
the  special  affections  of  our  nature  may  be,  yet,  if  along  with  them 
there  be  but  a  principle  of  equity  in  the  mind,  then,  these  affections, 
so  far  from  concentrating  our  selfish  regards  upon  their  several 
objects  to  the  disregard  and  injury  of  others,  will  but  enhance  oui 
respect  and  our  sympathy  for  the  like  affections  in  other  m.en. 

19.  This  may  be  illustrated,  in  the  first  instance,  by  the  equity 
observed  between  man  and  man,  in  respect  to  the  bodies  which 
they  wear — endowed,  as  we  may  suppose  them  to  be,  with  equal, 
at  least  a\  ith  like  capacities  of  pain  and  suffering  from  external 
violence.  To  inflict  that  very  pain  upon  another  which  I  should 
resent  or  shrink  from  in  agony,  if  inflicted  upon  myself — this  to 
all  sense  of  justice  appears  a  very  palpable  iniquity.  Let  us  now 
conceive  then,  that  the  sentient  frame-work  of  each  of  the  parties 
vv'as  made  twice  more  sensitive,  or  twice  more  alive  to  pain  and  pun- 
gency of  feeling  than  it  actually  is.  In  one  view  it  may  be  said  that 
each  would  become  twice  more  selfish  than  before.  Each  would 
feel  a  double  interest  in  warding  off  external  violence  from  him- 
self; and  so  be  doubly  more  anxious  for  his  ovrn  protection  and 
safety.  But,  wiih  the  very  samx  moral  nature  as  ever,  each,  now 
aware  of  the  increased  sensibility,  not  merely  in  himself  but  in  his 
fellows,  w  ould  feel  doubly  restrained  from  putting  forth  upon  him 
a  hand  of  violence.  So,  grant  him  to  have  but  a  sense  of  equity 
— and,  exactly  in  proportion  as  he  became  tender  of  himself,  would 
he  become  tender  of  another  also.  If  the  now  superior  exquisite- 
ness  of  his  own  frame  afforded  him  a  topic,  on  which,  what  may 
be  called  his  selfishness  would  feel  more  intensely  than  before — 
the  now  superior  cxquisiteness  of  another's  frame  would,  in  like 


THE    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETT.  143 

manner,  afford  a  topic,  on  which  his  sense  of  justice  would  feel 
more  intensely  than  before.  It  is  even  as  when  men  of  very 
acute  sensibilities  company  together — each  has,  on  that  very 
account,  a  more  delicate  and  refined  consideration  for  the  feel- 
ings of  all  the  rest;  and  it  is  only  among  men  of  tougher  pellicle 
and  rigid  fibre,  where  coarseness  and  freedom  prevail,  because 
there  coarseness  and  freedom  are  not  felt  to  be  offensive. 
Grant  me  but  a  sense  of  equity — and  the  very  fineness  of  my 
sensations  which  weds  me  so  much  more  to  the  care  and  the 
defence  of  my  own  person,  would  also,  on  the  imagination  of  a 
similar  fineness  in  a  fellow-man,  restrain  me  so  much  more 
from  the  putting  forth  of  any  violence  upon  his  person.  If  I  had 
any  compassion  at  all,  or  any  horror  at  the  injustice  of  inflicting 
upon  another,  that  which  I  should  feel  to  be  a  cruelty,  if  inflicted 
upon  myself — I  would  experience  a  greater  recoil  of  sympathy 
from  the  bl-ow  that  was  directed  to  the  surface  of  a  recent 
wound  upon  another,  precisely  as  I  would  feel  a  severer  agony 
in  a  similar  infliction  upon  myself.  So,  there  is  nothing  in  the 
quickness  of  my  physical  sensibilities,  and  by  which  I  am  ren- 
dered more  alive  to  the  care  and  the  guardianship  of  my  own 
person — there  is  nothing  in  this  to  blunt,  far  less  to  extinguish  my 
sensibilities  for  other  men.  Nay,  it  may  give  a  quicker  moral 
delicacy  to  all  the  sympathies  which  I  before  felt  for  them.  And 
especially,  the  more  sensitive  I  am  to  the  hurts  and  the  annoy- 
ances which  others  bring  upon  my  own  person,  the  more  scru- 
pulous may  I  be  of  being  in  any  way  instrumental  to  the  hurt  or 
the  annoyance  of  others. 

20.   The  same  holds  true  between  man  and  man,  not  merely 
of  the  bodies  which  they  wear,  but  of  the  families  which  belong 
to  them.      Each  man,  by  nature,  hath  a  strong  affection  for  his 
own  offspring — the  young  whom  he  hath  reared,  and  with  whom 
the  daily  habit  of  converse  under  the  same  roof,  hath  strength- 
ened all  the  original  affinities  that  subsisted  between  them.    But 
one  man  a  parent  knows  that  another  man,  also  a  parent,  is  actu- 
ated by  the  very  same  appropriate   sensibilities  towards  his  off- 
spring ;  and  nought  remains  but  to  graft  on  these  separate  and 
special  affections   in  each,  a  sympathy  between  one  neighbour 
and  another  ;  that  there  might  be  a  mutual  respect  for   each 
other's  family  affections.     After  the  matter  is  advanced  thus  far, 
we  can  be   at  no  loss  to  perceive,  that,  in  proportion  to  the 
strength  of  the  pai-ental  affection  with  each,  will  be  the  strength 
of  the  fellow-feeling  that  each  has  with  the  affection  of  the  other 
— insomuch  that  he  who  bears  in  his  heart  the  greatest  tender- 
ness for  his  own  offspring,  would  feel  the  greatest  revolt  against 
an  act  of  severity  towards  the  offspring  of  his  friend.      Now  it  is 


144  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

altogether  so  with  the  separate  and  original  sense  of  property  in 
each  of  two  neighbours,  and  a  sense  of  justice  grafted  thereupon 
— even  as  a  mutual  neighbourlike  sympathy  may  be  grafted  on 
the  separate  family  affections.  One  man  a  proprietor,  linked  by 
many  ties,  with  that  which  he  hath  possessed  and  been  in  the 
habitual  use  and  management  of  for  years,  is  perfectly  conscious 
of  the  very  same  kind  of  affinity,  between  another  man  a  pro- 
prietor and  that  which  belongs  to  him.  It  is  not  the  justice  which 
so  links  him  to  his  own  property,  any  more  than  it  is  the  sympathy 
with  his  neighbour  which  has  linked  him  to  his  own  children.  But 
the  justice  hath  given  him  a  respectful  feeling  for  his  neighbour's 
rights,  even  as  the  sympathy  would  give  him  a  tenderness  for  his 
neighbour's  offspring.  And  so  far  from  there  being  aught  in  the 
strength  of  the  appropriating  principle  that  relaxes  this  deferencG 
to  the  rights  of  his  neighbour,  the  second  principle  may  in  fact  grow 
with  the  growth,  and  strengthen  with  the  strength  of  the  first  one. 

21.  For  the  purpose  of  maintaining  an  equitable  regard,  or  an 
equitable  conduct  to  others — it  is  no  more  necessary  that  v.e 
should  reduce  or  extirpate  the  special  aflections  of  our  nature, 
than  that,  in  order  to  make  room  for  the  love  of  another,  we 
should  discharge  from  the  bosom  all  love  of  ourselves.  So  far 
from  this,  the  affection  we  have  for  ourselves,  or  for  those  va- 
rious objects  which  by  the  constitution  of  our  nature  we  are 
formed  to  seek  after  and  to  delight  in — is  the  measure  of  that 
duteous  regard  which  we  owe  to  others,  and  of  that  duteous  re- 
spect which  we  owe  to  all  their  rights  and  all  their  interests. 
The  very  highest  behest  of  social  morality,  while  at  the  same 
time  the  most  comprehensive  of  its  rules,  is  that  we  should  love 
our  neishbour  as  we  do  ourselves.  Love  to  our  neighbour  is 
the  thing  which  this  rule  measures  off — and  love  to  ourselves  is 
the  thing  which  it  measures  by.  These  two  then,  the  social  and 
the  selfish  affections,  instead  of  being  as  they  too  often  are  in- 
versely, might  under  a  virtuous  regimen  be  directly  proportional 
to  each  other.  At  all  events  the  way  to  advance  or  magnify  the 
one,  is  not  surely  to  weaken  or  abridge  the  other.  The  strength 
of  certain  prior  affections  which  by  nature  we  do  have,  is  the 
standard  of  certain  posterior  affections  which  morality  tells  thai 
w^e  ought  to  have.  Morality  neither  planted  these  prior  affec- 
tions, nor  does  she  enjoin  us  to  extirpate  them.  They  were  in- 
serted by  the  hand  of  nature  for  the  most  useful  purposes ;  and 
morality,  instead  of  demolishing  her  work,  applies  the  rule  and 
compass  to  it  for  the  construction  of  her  own, 

22.  It  v/as  not  justice  which  presided  over  the  original  distri- 
bution of  property.  It  was  not  she  who  assigned  to  each  man 
his  separate  field,  any  more  than  it  was  she  who  assigned  to  each 


THE    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  145 

man  his  separate  fiimily.  It  was  nature  that  did  both,  l)y  invest- 
ing with  such  power  those  anterior  circumstances  of  habit  and 
possession,  which  gave  rise — first,  to  the  special  love  that  each 
man  bears  to  his  own  children,  and  secondly,  to  the  special  love 
that  each  man  bears  to  his  own  acres.  Had  there  been  no  such 
processes  beforehand,  for  thus  isolating  the  parental  regards  of 
each  on  that  certain  household  group  which  nature  placed  under 
hi-<  roof,  and  the  proprietary  regards  of  each  on  that  certain  local 
territory  which  history  casts  into  his  possession  :  or,  had  each 
man  been  so  constituted,  that,  instead  of  certain  children  whom 
he  felt  to  be  his  own,  he  was  alike  loose  to  them  or  susceptible 
of  a  like  random  and  indiscriminate  affection  for  any  children ; 
or,  instead  of  certain  lands  which  he  felt  to  be  his  own,  he  was 
alike  loose  to  them  or  susceptible  of  a  like  tenacious  adherence 
to  any  lands — had  such  been  the  rudimental  chaos  which  nature 
put  into  the  hands  of  man  for  the  exercise  of  his  matured  facul- 
ties, neither  his  morality  nor  his  wisdom  would  have  enabled  him 
to  unravel  it.  But  nature  prepared  for  man  an  easier  task  ;  and 
when  justice  arose  to  her  work,  she  found  a  territory  so  far 
aheady  partitioned,  and  each  proprietor  linked  by  a  strong  and 
separate  tie  of  peculiar  force  to  that  part  which  he  himself  did 
occupy.  She  found  this  to  be  the  land  which  one  man  wont  to 
possess  and  cultivate,  and  that  to  be  the  land  which  another  man 
wont  to  possess  and  cultivate — the  destination,  not  originally, 
of  justice,  but  of  accident,  which  her  office  nevertheless  is  not 
to  reverse,  but  to  confirm.  We  hold  it  a  beautiful  part  of  our 
constitution,  that,  the  firmer  the  tenacity  wherewith  the  first  man 
adheres  to  his  own,  once  that  justice  takes  her  place  among  the 
other  principles  of  his  nature,  the  prompter  will  be  his  recogni- 
tion of  the  second  man's  right  to  his  ovv^n.  If  each  man  sat 
more  loosely  to  his  own  portion,  each  would  have  viewed  more 
loosely  the  right  of  his  neighbour  to  the  other  portion.  The 
sense  of  property,  anterior  to  justice,  exists  in  the  hearts  of  all ; 
and  the  principle  of  justice,  subsequent  to  property,  does  not 
extirpate  these  special  affections,  but  only  arbitrates  between 
them.  In  proportion  to  the  telt  strength  of  the  proprietary  affec- 
tion in  the  hearts  of  each ;  vv^ill  be  the  strength  of  that  defer- 
ence which  each,  in  so  far  as  justice  has  the  mastery  over  him, 
renders  to  the  rights  and  the  property  of  his  neighbour.  These 
are  the  principles  of  the  histoire  raisGnnee,  that  has  been  more 
or  less  exemplified  in  all  the  countries  of  the  world ;  and  which 
might  still  be  exemplified  in  the  appropriation  of  a  desert  island. 
If  we  had  not  had  the  prior  and  special  determinations  of  nature, 
justice  v/ould  have  felt  the  work  of  appropriation  to  be  an  inex- 
tricable problem.  If  we  had  not  had  justice,  with  each  mnn 
13 


146  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

obeying  only  the  impulse  of  his  own  affections  and  unobservant 
of  the  like  affection  of  others,  we  should  have  been  kept  in  a 
state  of  constant  and  interminable  war.  Under  the  guidance 
of  nature  and  justice  together,  the  whole  earth  might  have  been 
parcelled  out,  without  conflict  and  without  interference. 

23.  If  a  strong  self-interest  in  one's  person  may  not  only  be 
consistent  with,  but,  by  the  aid  of  the  moral  sense,  may  be  con- 
ducive to  a  proportionally  strong  principle  of  forbearance  from 
all  injury  to  the  persons  of  other  men — why  may  not  the  very 
same  law  be  at  work  in  regard  to  property  as  to  person  ?  The 
fondness  wherewith  one  nourishes  and  cherishes  his  own  flesh, 
might,  we  have  seen,  enhance  his  sympathy  and  his  sense  of  jus- 
tice for  that  of  other  men  ;  and  so,  we  affirm,  might  it  be  of  the 
fondness  wherewith  one  nourishes  and  cherishes  his  own  field. 
The  relation  in  which  each  man  stands  to  his  own  body,  v/as  an- 
terior to  the  first  dawnings  of  his  moral  nature  ;  and  his  instinc- 
tive sensibilities  of  pain  and  suflering,  when  any  violence  is 
inflicted,  were  also  anterior.  But  as  his  moral  perceptions  ex- 
pand, and  he  considers  others  beside  himself  who  are  similarly 
related  to  their  bodies — these  very  susceptibilities  not  only  lead 
him  to  recoil  from  the  violence  that  is  offered  to  himself;  but 
they  lead  him  to  refrain  from  the  offering  of  violence  to  other  men. 
They  may  have  an  air  of  selfishness  at  the  first ;  yet  so  far  from 
being  obstacles  in  the  way  of  justice,  they  are  indispensable  helps 
to  it.  And  so  may  each  man  stand  related  to  a  property  as  well 
as  to  a  person  ;  and  by  ties  that  bind  him  to  it,  ere  he  thought  of 
his  neighbour's  property  at  all — by  instinctive  affections,  which 
operated  previously  to  a  sense  of  justice  in  his  bosom  ;  and  yet 
which,  so  far  from  acting  as  a  thwart  upon  his  justice  to  others, 
give  additional  impulse  to  all  his  observations  of  it.  He  feels 
what  has  passed  within  his  own  bosom,  in  reference  to  the  field 
that  he  has  possessed,  and  has  laboured,  and  that  has  for  a  time 
been  respected  by  society  as  his  ;  and  he  is  aware  of  the  very 
same  feelino;  in  the  breast  of  a  neighbour  in  relation  to  another 
field  ;  and  in  very  proportion  to  the  strength  of  his  own  feelmg, 
does  he  defer  to  that  of  his  fellow-men.  It  is  at  this  point  that 
the  sense  of  justice  begins  to  operate — not  for  the  purpose  of 
leading  him  to  appropriate  his  own,  for  this  he  has  already  done  ; 
but  for  the  purpose  of  leading  him  to  respect  the  property  of 
others.  It  was  not  justice  which  gave  to  either  of  them  at  the 
first  that  feeling  of  property,  which  each  has  in  his  own  separate 
domain  ;  any  more  than  it  was  justice  which  gave  to  either  of 
them  that  feeling  of  affection  which  each  has  for  his  own  children. 
It  is  after,  and  not  before  these  feelings  are  formed,  that  justice 
steps  in  with  her  golden  rule,  of  not  doing  to  others  as  we  would 


THE    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  147 

not  others  to  do  unto  us  ;  and,  all  conscious  as  we  are  of  the  dis- 
like and  resentment  we  should  feel  on  the  invasion  of  our  pro- 
perty, it  teaches  to  defer  to  a  similar  dislike  and  a  similar  re- 
sentment in  other  men.  And,  so  far  from  this  original  and 
instinctive  regard  for  this  property  which  is  my  own  serving  at 
all  to  impair,  when  once  the  moral  sense  comes  into  play,  it  en- 
hances my  equitable  regard  for  the  property  of  others.  It  is  just 
with  me  the  proprietor,  as  it  is  with  me  the  parent.  My  affection 
for  my  own  family  does  not  prompt  me  to  appropriate  the  family 
of  another  ;  but  it  strengthens  my  sympathetic  consideration  for 
the  tenderness  and  feeling  of  their  own  parent  towards  them. 
My  affection  for  my  own  field  does  not  incline  me  to  seize  upon 
that  of  another  man  ;  but  it  strengthens  my  equitable  considera- 
tion for  all  the  attachments  and  the  claims  which  its  proprietor 
has  upon  it.  In  proportion  to  the  strength  of  that  instinct  which 
binds  me  to  my  own  offspring,  is  the  sympathy  I  feel  with  the 
tenderness  of  other  parents.  In  proportion  to  the  strength  of 
that  instinct  which  binds  me  to  my  own  property,  is  the  sense  of 
equity  I  feel  towards  the  rights  of  all  other  proprietors.  It  was 
not  justice  which  gave  either  the  one  instinct  or  the  other  ;  but 
justice  teaches  each  man  to  bear  respect  to  that  instinct  in 
another,  which  he  feels  to  be  of  powerful  operation  in  his  own 
bosom. 

24.  It  is  in  virtue  of  my  sentient  nature  that  I  am  so  painfully 
alive  to  the  violence  done  upon  my  own  body,  as  to  recoil  from 
the  infliction  of  it  upon  myself.  And  it  is  in  virtue  of  my  moral 
nature,  that,  alive  to  the  pain  of  other  bodies  than  my  own,  I  re- 
frain from  the  infliction  of  it  upon  them.  It  is  not  justice  which 
gives  the  sensations ;  but  justice  pronounces  on  the  equal  re- 
spect that  is  due  to  the  sensations  of  all.  Neither  does  justice 
give  the  sensations  of  property,  but  it  finds  them  ;  jmd  pronoun- 
ces on  the  respect  which  each  owes  to  the  sensations  of  all  the 
rest.  It  was  not  justice  which  gave  the  personal  feeling  ;  neither 
is  it  justice  which  gives  the  possessory  feeUng.  Justice  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  process  by  which  this  body  came  to  be  my 
own ;  and  although  now,  perhaps,  there  is  not  a  property,  at 
least  in  the  civilized  world,  which  may  not  have  passed  into  the 
hand  of  their  actual  possessors,  by  a  series  of  purchases,  over 
which  justice  had  the  direction — yet  there  was  a  time  when  it 
might  have  been  said,  that  justice  has  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
process  by  which  this  garden  came  to  be  my  own  ;  and  yet,  then 
as  well  as  now,  it  would  have  been  the  utterance  of  a  true  feeling^ 
that  he  who  touches  this  garden,  touches  the  apple  of  mine  eye. 
And  it  is  as  much  the  dictate  of  justice,  that  we  shall  respect  the 
one  sensation  as  the  other.     He,  indeed,  who  has  the  greatest 


148  AFFECTIOJNS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

sensitiveness,  whether  about  his  own  person  or  his  own  property, 
will,  with  an  equal  principle  of  justice  in  his  constitution,  have 
the  greatest  sympathy,  both  for  the  personal  and  the  proprietary 
rights  of  others.     This  view  of  it  saves  all  the  impracticable  mys- 
ticism that  has  gathered  around  the  speculations  of  those,  who 
conceive   of  justice,  as  presiding  over  the  first  distiibutions  of 
property ;  and  so  have  fallen  into  the  very  common  mistake,  of 
trying  to  account  for  that  which  had  been  provided  for  by  the 
wisdom  of  nature,  as  if  it  had  been  provided  by  the  wisdom  and 
the  principle  of  man.     At  the  first  allocations  of  property,  justice 
may  have  had  no  hand  in  them.'     They  were  altogether  fortui- 
tous.     One  man  set  himself  dov/n,  perhaps  on  a  better  soil  than 
Ills  neighbour,  and  chalked  out  for  himself  a  larger  territory,  at  a 
time  when  there  was  none  who  interfered  or  who  offered  to  share 
it  with  him  ;  and  so  he  came  to  as  firm  a  possessory  feeling  in 
reference  to  his  wider  domain,  as  the  other  has  in  reference  to 
his  smaller.      Our  metaphysical  jurists  are  sadly  puzzled  to  ac- 
count for  the  original  inequalities  of  property,  and  for  the  practi- 
cal acquiescence  of  all  men  in  the  actual  and  very  unequal  dis- 
tribution of  it — having  recourse  to  an  original  social  compact, 
and  to  other  fictions   alike  visionary.     But  if  there  be  truth  in 
our  theory,  it  is  just  as  easy  to  explain,  why  the  humble  propri- 
etor, would  no  more  think  of  laying  claim  to  certain  acres  of  his 
rich  neighbour's  estate  because  it  was  larger  than  his  own,  than 
he  would  think  of  laying  claim  to  certain  children  of  his  neigh- 
bour's family  because  it  was  larger — -or  even  of  laying  claim  to 
certain  parts  of  his  neighbour's  person  because  it  v.as  larger. 
He  is  sufficiently  acquainted   with  his  own  nature  to  be  aware, 
that,  were  the  circumstances  changed,  he  should  feel  precisely 
as  his  affluent  neighbour  does  ;  and  he  respects  the  feeling  ac- 
cordingly.    He  knows  that,  if  himself  at  the  head  of  a  larger 
property,  he  v/ould  have  the  same  affection  for  all  its  fields  that 
the  actual  proprietor  has ;  and  that,  if  at  the  head  of  a  largt-r  fa- 
mily, he  would  have  the  same  affection  vvith  the  actual  parent  for 
all  its  children.     It  is  by  making  justice  come  in  at  the  right  place, 
that  is,  not  prior  to  these  strong  affections  of  nature  but  posterior 
to    them,  that  the  perplexities  of  this  inquiry  are  done  away. 
The  principle  on  which  it  arbitrates,  is,  not  the  comparative  mag- 
nitude of  the  properties,  but  the  relative  feelings  of  each  actual 
possessor  towards  each  actual  property ;  and  if  it  find  these  in 
every  instance,  to  be  the  very  feelings  v.hich  all  men  would  have 
in  the  circumstances  belonging  to  that  instance — it  attempts  nc 
new  distribution,  but  gives  its  full  sanction  to  the  distribution 
which  is  already  before  it.     This  is  the  real  origin  and  upholder 
of  that  conservative  influence  which  binds  together  the  rich  and 


THE    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  149 

the  poor  in  society ;  and  thus  it  is  that  property  is  respected 
throughout  all  its  gradations. 

25.  It  is  from  the  treatment  of  an  original  as  if  it  were  a  de- 
rived affection,  that  the  whole  obscurity  on  this  topic  has  arisen. 
It  is  quite  as  impossible  to  educe  the  possessory  feeling  from  an 
anterior  sense  of  justice,  or  from  a  respect  for  law — as  it  is  to 
educe  the  parental  feeling  from  a  previous  and  comprehensive 
regard  for  the  interests  of  humanity.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the 
general  good  is  best  promoted  by  the  play  of  special  family  affec- 
tions ;  but  this  is  the  work  of  nature,  and  not  the  work  of  man. 
And  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  wealth  and  comfort  of  society  are 
inconceivably  augmented  by  those  influences,  which  bind  each 
individual  nearly  as  much  to  his  own  property,  as  he  is  bound  to 
his  ow\i  offspring.  But  in  the  one  case  as  well  as  the  other, 
there  were  certain  instinctive  regards  that  came  first,  and  the 
ofBce  of  justice  is  altogether  a  subsequent  one  ;  not  to  put  these 
regards  into  the  breast  of  any,  but  to  award  the  equal  deference 
that  is  due  to  the  regards  of  all — insomuch  that  the  vast  domain 
of  one  individual,  perhaps  transmitted  to  him  from  generation  to 
generation,  throughout  the  lengthened  series  of  an  ancestry, 
whose  feet  are  now  upon  the  earth,  but  whose  top  reaches  the 
clouds  and  is  there  lost  in  distant  and  obscure  antiquity — is,  to 
the  last  inch  of  its  margin,  under  a  guardianship  of  justice  as  un- 
violable,  as  that  which  assures  protection  and  ownership  to  the 
humble  possessor  of  one  solitary  acre.  The  right  of  property  is 
not  the  less  deferred  to,  either  because  its  divisions  are  unequal, 
or  because  its  origin  is  unknown.  And,  even  when  history  tells 
us  that  it  is  founded  on  some  deed  of  iniquitous  usurpation,  there 
is  a  charm  in  the  continued  occupation,  that  prevails  and  has  the 
mastery  over  our  most  indignant  remembrance  of  the  villany  of 
other  days.  It  says  much  for  the  strength  of  the  possessory  feel- 
ing, that,  even  in  less  than  half  a  century,  it  will,  if  legal  claims 
are  meanwhile  forborne,  cast  into  obliteration,  all  the  deeds,  and 
even  all  the  delinquencies,  which  attach  to  the  commencement 
of  a  property.  At  length  the  prescriptive  right  bears  every  thing 
before  it,  as  by  the  consuetude  of  English,  by  the  use  and  wont 
of  Scottish  law.  And  therefore,  once  more,  instead  of  saying, 
with  Dr.  Paley  that  it  is  the  law  of  the  land  which  constitutes 
the  basis  of  property — the  law  exhibits  her  best  wisdom,  when 
she  founds  on  the  materials  of  that  basis,  which  nature  and  the 
common  sense  of  mankind  have  laid  before  her. 

26.  Dr.  Thomas  Brown,  we  hold  to  have  been  partly  right 
and  partly  wrong  upon  this  subject.  He  evinces  a  true  discern- 
ment of  what  may  be  termed  the  pedigree  of  our  feelings  in  re- 
gard to  property,   when  he  says  and  says  admirably  well — that, 

13* 


150  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

*  "Justice  is  not  what  constitutes  property;  it  is  a  virtue  which 
presupposes  property  and  respects  it  however  constituted."    And 
further,  that — "justice  as  a  moral  virtue  is  not  the   creation  of 
property,  but  the  conformity  of  our  actions  to  those  views  of  pro- 
perty, which  vary  in  the  various  states  of  society."     But  it  is  not 
as  he  would  affirm,  it  is  not  because  obedience  to  a  system  of 
law,  of  which  the  evident  tendency  is.to  the  public  good,  is  the 
object  of  our  moral  regard — it  is  not  this,  which  moralizes,  if  we 
may  be  allowed  such  an  application  of  the  term,  or  rather,  which 
constitutes  the  virtuousness  of  our  respect  to  another  man's  pro- 
perty.    This   is  the  common  mistake  of  those   moralists,  who 
would  ascribe  every'useful  direction  or  habitude  of  man  to  some 
previous   and  comprehensive  view  taken  by  himself  of  what  is 
best  for  the  good  of  the  individual  or  the  good  of  society  ;  instead 
of  regarding  such  habitude  as  the  fruit  of  a  special  tendency  im- 
pressed direct  by  the  hand  of  nature,  or  a  previous  and  compre- 
hensive view  taken  by  its  autlior,  and  therefore  bearing  on  it  a  pal- 
pable indication  both  of  the  goodness  and  the  wisdom  of  nature's 
God — even  as  hunger  is  the  involuntary  result  of  man's  physical 
constitution,  and  not  of  any  care  or  consideration  by  man  on  theuscs 
of  food,    the  trutli  is — v.hen,  deferring  to  another's  right  of  pro- 
perty, we  do  not  think  of  the  public  good  in  the  matter  at  all.   But 
we  are  glad,  in  the  first  instance,  each  to  possess  and  to  use  and  to 
improve  all  that  we  are  able  to  do  without  molestation,  whether 
that  freedom  from  molestation  has  been  secured  to  us  by  lavv^  or 
by  the  mere  circumstances  of  our  state  ;  and,  in  virtue  of  princi- 
ples, not  resulting  from  any  anticipations  of  wisdom  or  any  views 
of  general  philanthropy,  (because  developed  in  early  chiklhood 
and  long  before  we  are  capable  of  being  either  philanthropists  or 
legislators)  we  feel  a  strong  link  of  ownership  with  that  which 
we  have  thus  possessed  and  used,   and  on  which  we  have  be- 
stowed our  improvements  ;  and  \vc  are  aware  that  another  man, 
in  similar  relation  with  another  property,  will  lecl  tov.ards  it  in 
like  manner;   and  a  sense  of  justice,  or  its  still  more  significant 
and  instructive  name,  of  equity,  suggests  this  equality  between 
me  and  him — that,  in  the  same  manner  as  I  would  regard  his 
encroachment  on  myself  as  injurious,  so  it  were  alike  injurious 
in  me  to  make  a  similar  encroachment  upon  m.y  neighbour. 

27.  We  have  expatiated  thus  long  on  the  origin  and  rights  of 
property — because  of  all  subjects,  it  is  the  one,  regarding  which 
our  writers  on  jurisprudence  have  sent  forth  the  greatest  amount 
of  doubtful  and  unsatisfactory  metaphysics.  They  labour  and 
are  in  great  perplexity  to  explain  even  the  rise  of  the  feeling  or 

*  Lecture  Ixxxiii. 


THE    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  .  151 

desire  that  is  in  the  mind  regarding  it.  They  reason,  as  if  the 
very  conception  of  property  was  that,  which  could  not  have  en- 
tered into  the  heart  ot"man  without  a  previous  sense  of  justice. 
In  this  we  hold  them  to  have  antedated  matters  wrong.  The 
conception  of  property  is  aboriginal ;  and  the  office  of  justice  is 
not  to  put  it  into  any  man's  head  ;  but  to  arbitrate  among  the 
rival  feelings  of  cupidity,  or  the  arrogant  and  overpassing  claims 
that  are  apt  to  get  into  all  men's  heads — not  to  initiate  man  into 
the  notion  of  property  ;  but,  in  fact,  to  limit  and  restrain  his 
notion  of  it — not  to  teach  the  creatures  who  at  first  conceive 
themselves  to  have  nothing,  what  that  is  which  they  might  call 
their  own  ;  but  to  teach  the  creatures  Avhose  iirst  and  earliest 
tendency  is  to  call  every  thing  their  own,  what  that  is  which  they 
must  refrain  from  and  concede  to  others.  When  justice  rises  to 
authority  among  men,  her  office  is,  not  to  wed  each  individual  by 
the  link  of  property  to  that  which  he  formerly  thought  it  was  not 
competent  for  him  to  use  or  to  possess  ;  but  it  is  to  divorce  each 
individual  from  that,  which  it  is  not  rightly  competent  for  him  to 
use  or  to  possess — and  thus  restrict  each  to  his  own  rightful 
{)ortion.  Its  office  in  fact  is  restrictive,  not  dispensatory.  The 
use  of  it  is,  not  to  give  the  first  notion  of  jjroperty  to  those  who  were 
destitute  of  it,  but  to  limit  and  restrain  the  notion  with  those 
among  whom  it  is  apt  to  exist  in  a  state  of  overflow.  The  use 
of  law,  in  short,  the  great  expounder  and  enforcer  of  property,  is 
not  to  instruct  the  men,  who  but  for  her  lessons  would  appropri- 
ate none  ;  but  it  is  to  restrain  the  men  who,  but  for  her  checks 
and  prohibitions,  would  monopolize  all. 

2S.  Such  then  seems  to  have  been  the  purpose  of  nature  in  so 
framing  our  mental  constitution,  that  we  not  only  appropriate 
from  the  first ;  but  feel,  each,  such  a  power  in  those  circumstan- 
ces, which  serve  to  limit  the  appropriation  of  every  one  man  and 
to  distinguish  them  from  those  of  others — that  all,  as  if  with  com- 
mon and  practical  consent,  sit  side  by  side  together,  without  con- 
flict and  without  interference,  on  their  own  respective  portions, 
however  unequal,  of  the  territory  in  which  they  are  placed.  On 
the  uses,  the  indispensable  uses  of  such  an  arrangement,  we 
need   not   expatiate.*      The    hundred-fold   superiority,   in    the 

*  "  The  effect  (of  tlie  abolition  of  property)  would  be  a«  'nstant  as  inevi'ablc.  The 
cultivation  of  the  fields  would  be  abandoned.  The  population  would  be  broken  up 
into  straggling  bands — each  prowling  in  quest  of  a  share  in  the  remaining  subsistence 
for  themselves ;  and  in  the  mutual  contests  of  rapacity,  they  would  anticipate,  by 
deaths  of  violence,  those  still  crueller  deaths  that  would  ensue,  in  the  fearful  destitu- 
tion which  awaited  them.  Yet  many  would  be  left  whom  the  sword  had  spared,  but 
whom  famine  would  not  spare — that  overwhelming  calamity  under  which  a  w  hole  na- 
tion might  ultimately  disappear. — But  a  few  miserable  survivors  would  dispute  the 
spontaneous  fruits  of  the  earth  with  the  beast?  of  the  ficld.who  now  multiplied  and  over- 


152  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

amount  of  produce  for  the  subsistence  of  human  beings,  which 
an  appropriated  country  has  over  an  equal  extent  of  a  hke  fertile 
but  unappropriated,  and,  therefore,  unreclaimed  wilderness,  is 
too  obvious  to  be  explained.  It  may  be  stated  however;  and 
when  an  economy  so  beneficial,  without  which  even  a  few  strag- 
glers of  our  race  could  not  be  supported  in  comfort ;  and  a  large 
human  family,  though  many  times  inferior  to  that  which  now  peo- 
ples our  globe,  could  not  be  supported  at  all — when  the  effect  of 
this  economy,  in  multiplying  to  a  degree  inconceivable  the  ali- 
ment of  human  bodies,  is  viewed  in  connexion  with  those  prior 
tendencies  of  the  human  mind  which  gave  it  birth,  we  cannot  but 
regard  the  whole  as  an  instance,  and  one  of  the  strongest  which 
it  is  possible  to  allege,  of  the  adaptation  of  external  nature  to  that 
mental  constitution,  wherewith  the  Author  of  nature  hath  endow- 
ed us. 

29.  In  connexion  with  this  part  of  our  subject,  there  is  one  es- 
pecial adaptation,  the  statement  of  which  we  more  willingly  bring 
forward,  that,  beside  being  highly  important  in  itself,  it  forms  an 
instance  of  adaptation  in  the  pure  and  limited  sense  of  the  term* 
— even  the  influence  of  a  circumstance  strictly  material  on 
the  state  of  the  moral  world,  in  all  the  civilized,  and  indeed  in 
all  the  appropriated  countries  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  We  ad- 
vert to  the  actual  fertility  of  the  land,  and  to  the  circumstances 
purely  physical  by  which  the  degree  or  measure  of  that  fertility 
is  determined.  It  has  been  well  stated  by  some  of  the  expound- 
ers of  geological  science,  that,  while  the  vegetable  mould  on  the 
earth's  surface  is  subject  to  perpetual  waste,  from  the  action 
both  of  the  winds  and  of  the  waters,  either  blowing  it  away  in 
dust,  or  washing  it  down  in  rivers  to  the  ocean — the  loss  thus 
sustained,  is  nevertheless  perpetually  repaired  by  the  operation 
of  the  same  material  agents  on  the  uplands  of  the  territory — 
whence  the  dust  and  the  debris,  produced  by  a  disintegration 
that  is  constantly  going  on  even  in  the  hardest  rocks,  is  either 
strewed  by  the  atmosphere,  or  carried  down  in  an  enriching  se- 
diment by  mountain  streams  to   the  lands  which   are  beneath 

ran  that  land  uhich  had  been  desolated  of  its  people.  And  so  by  a  scries,  every  step 
of  which  was  marked  with  increasinor  wretchedness,  the  transition  would  at  length 
be  made  to  a  thinly  scattered  tribe  of  hunters,  on  what  before  had  been  a  peopled  ter- 
ritory of  industrious  and  ( •titivated  men.  Thus,  on  the  abolition  of  this  single  law, 
the  fairest  and  most  civilized  region  of  the  globe,  which  at  present  sustains  its  millions 
of  families,  out  of  a  fertility  that  now  waves  over  its  cultivated,  because  its  appropriated 
acres,  would,  on  the  simple  tie  of  appropriation  being  broken,  lapse  in  a  very  few 
years  into  a  frightful  solitude,  or,  if  not  bereft  of  humanity  altogether,  would  at  last  be- 
come as  desolate  and  dreary  as  a  North  American  wilderness." — Political  Economy 
in  connexion  with  the  Moral  State  and  Moral  Prospects  of  Society. 

*  See  the  first  paragraphs  of  the  introductor)'  chapter. 


THE    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  163 

them.  It  has  been  rightly  argued,  as  the  evidence  and  example 
of  a  benevolent  design,  that  the  opposite  causes  of  consumption 
and  of  supply  are  so  adjusted  to  each  other,  as  to  have  ensured 
the  perpetuity  of  our  soils.*  But  even  though  these  counter- 
acting forces  had  been  somewhat  ditTerently  balanced  ;  though 
the  wasting  operation  had  remained  as  active  and  as  powerful, 
while  a  more  difficult  pulverization  of  the  rocks  had  made  the 
restorative  operation  slower  and  feebler  than  before — still  we 
might  have  had  our  permanent  or  stationary  soils,  but  only  all 
of  less  fertility  than  that  in  which  we  now  find  them.  A  some- 
what different  constitution  of  the  rocks  ;  or  a  somewhat  altered 
proportion  in  the  forces  of  that  machinery  which  is  brought  to 
bear  upon  them — in  the  cohesion  that  withstands,  or  in  the  im- 
pulse and  the  atmospherical  depositions  and  the  grinding  frosts 
and  the  undermining  torrents  that  separate  and  carry  off  the  ma- 
terials— a  slight  change  in  one  or  all  of  these  causes,  might  have 
let  down  each  of  the  various  soils  on  the  face  of  the  world  to  a 
lower  point  in  the  scale  of  productiveness  than  at  present  be- 
longs to  them.  And  when  we  think  of  the  mighty  bearing  which 
the  determination  of  this  single  element  has  on  the  state  and  in- 
terests of  human  society,  we  cannot  resist  the  conclusion  that, 
depending  as  it  does  on  so  many  influences,  there  has,  in  the 

^  "  It  is  highly  interesting  to  trace  up,  in  tliis  manner,  the  action  of  causes  with 
wliich  we  are  familiar,  to  the  production  of  effects,  \vhich  at  first  seem  to  require  the 
introduction  of  unknown  and  extraordinary  powers ;  and  it  is  no  less  interesting  to 
observe,  how  skilfully  nature  has  balanced  the  action  of  all  the  minute  causes  of 
waste  and  reu'lered  them  conducive  to  the  general  good.  Of  this  we  have  a  most 
remarkable  instance,  in  the  provision  made  for  preserving  the  soil,  or  the.  eoat  of  ve- 
getable mould,  spread  out  over  the  surface  of  the  earth.  This  coat,  as  it  consists  of 
loose  materials,  is  easily  washed  away  by  the  rains,  and  is  continually  carried  down 
by  the  rivers  into  the  sea.  This  effect  is  visible  to  every  one  ;  the  earth  is  removed 
not  only  in  the  form  of  sand  and  gravel,  but  its  finer  particles  suspended  in  the  waters, 
tinge  those  of  some  rivers  continually,  and  those  of  all  occasionally,  that  is,  when 
they  are  flooded  or  swollen  with  rains.  The  quantify  of  earth  thus  carried  down,  va- 
ries according  to  circumstances  ;  it  ha.s  been  computed  in  some  instances,  that  the 
water  of  a  river  in  a  flood,  contains  earthly  matter  suspended  in  it,  amounting  to 
more  than  the  two  hundred  and  fiftieth  part  of  its  own  bulk.  The  soil  therefore,  is 
continually  diminished,  its  parts  being  delivered  from  higher  to  lower  levels,  and 
fmally  delivered  into  the  sea.  But  it  is  a  fact,  (hat  the  soil,  notwithstanding,  remains 
the  same  in  quantity,  or  at  least  nearly  the  same,  and  must  have  done  so,  ever  since 
the  earth  was  ihe  receptacle  of  animal  or  vegetable  life.  The  soil  therefore  is  aug- 
mented from  other  causes,  just  as  much,  at  an  average,  as  it  is  diminished  by  those 
now  mentioned  ;  and  this  augmentation  evidently  can  proceed  from  nothing  but  the 
constant  and  slow  disintegration  of  the  rocks.  In  the  permanence,  therefore,  of  a 
coat  of  vegetable  mould  on  the  surface  of  the  earth,  we  have  a  demonstrative  proof 
of  the  continual  destruction  of  tlie  rocks  ;  and  cannot  but  admire  the  skill,  with  which 
the  powers  of  the  many  chemical  and  mechanical  agents  employed  in  this  complicated 
work,  are  so  adjusted,  as  to  make  the  supply  and  the  waste  of  the  soil  exactly  equal 
to  one  another." — Plavfair's  Illustrations  of  the  Hultonian  Theory.  Section  iii 
Art.  13. 


154  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

assortment  of  these,  been  a  studied  adaptation  of  the  material 
and  the  mental  worlds  to  each  other.  For  only  let  us  consider 
the  effect,  had  the  fertility  been  brought  so  low,  as  that  on  the 
best  of  soils,  the  produce  extracted  by  the  most  strenuous  efforts 
of  human  toil,  could  no  more  than  repay  the  cultivation  bestowed 
on  them — or  that  the  food,  thus  laboriously  raised,  would  barely 
suffice  for  the  maintenance  of  the  labourers.  It  is  obvious  that 
a  fertility  beneath  this  point  would  have  kept  the  whole  earth  in 
a  state  of  perpetual  barrenness  and  desolation — when,  though 
performing  as  now  its  astronomical  circuit  in  the  heavens,  it 
would  have  been  a  planet  bereft  of  life,  or  at  least  unfit  for  the 
abode  and  sustenance  of  the  rational  generations  by  whom  it 
is  at  present  occupied.  But  even  with  a  fertility  at  this  point, 
although  a  race  of  men  might  have  been  upholden,  the  tenure 
bv  which  each  man  held  his  existence  behoved  to  have  been  a 
life  of  unremitting  drudgery ;  and  we  should  have  beheld  the 
whole  species  engaged  in  a  constant  struggle  of  penury  and 
pain  for  the  supply  of  their  animal  necessities.  And  it  is  be- 
cause of  a  fertility  above  this  point,  the  actual  fertility  of  vast 
portions  of  land  in  most  countries  of  the  earth — that  many 
and  extensive  are  the  soils  which  yield  a  large  surplus  pro- 
duce, over  and  above  the  maintenance  of  all,  who  are  en- 
gaged, whether  directly  or  indirectly,  in  the  work  of  their  cultiva- 
tion. The  strength  of  the  possessory  feelings  on  the  one  hand, 
giving  rise  to  possessory  rights  recognized  and  acquiesced  in 
by  all  men  ;  these  rights  investing  a  single  i^di^'idual  with  the 
ownership  of  lands,  that  yield  on  the  other  hand  a  surplus  pro- 
duce, over  which  he  has  the  uncontrolled  disposal — make  up 
together,  such  a  constitution  of  the  moral,  combined  with  such 
a  constitution  of  the  material  system,  as  demonstrates  that  the 
gradation  of  wealth  in  human  society  has  its  deep  and  its  lasting 
foundation  in  the  nature  of  things.  And  that  the  construction 
of  such  an  economy,  with  all  the  conservative  influences  by 
which  it  is  upholden,*  attests  both  the  wisdom  and  the  benevo- 
lence of  Him  who  is  the  Author  of  nature,  mav  best  be  evinced 
by  the  momentous  purposes,  to  which  this  surplus  produce  of 
land,  (the  great  originator  of  all  that  can  be  termed  affluence  in 
the  world)  is  subservient. — "  Had  no  ground  yielded  more  in 
return  for  the  labour  expended  on  it,  than  the  food  of  the  culti- 
vators and  their  secondaries,  the  existence  of  one  and  all  of  the 
human  race  would  have  been  spent  in  mere  labour.  Every  man 
would  have  been  doomed  to  a  life  of  unremitting  toil  for  his 
bodily  subsistence ;  and  none  could  have  been  supported  in  a 

*  See  Art.  7  of  this  Chapter. 


THE    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  166 

State  of  leisure,  either  for  idleness,  or  for  other  employments 
than  those  of  husbandry,  and  such  coarser  manufactures  as  serve 
to  provide  society  with   the  second  necessaries  of  existence. 
•The  species  would  have  risen  but  a  few  degrees,  whether  phy- 
sical or  moral,  above  the  condition  of  mere  savages.     It  is  just 
because  of  a  tertility  in  the  earth,  by  which  it  yields  a  surplus 
over  and  above  the  food  of  the  direct  and  secondary  labourers, 
that  we  can  command  the  services  of  a  disposable  population, 
who,  in  return  for  their  maintenance,  minister  to  the  proprietors 
of  this  surplus,  all  the  higher  comforts  and  elegancies  of  life. 
It  is  precisely  to  this  surplus  we  owe  it,  that  society  is  provided 
with  more  than  a  coarse  and  a  bare  supply  for  the  necessities 
of  animal  nature.     It  is  the  original  fund  out  of  which  are  paid 
the  expenses  of  art,  and  science,  and  civilization,  and  luxury, 
and  law,  and  defence,  and  all,  in  short,  that  contributes  either  to 
strengthen  or  to  adorn  the  commonwealth.    Without  this  surplus, 
we  should  have  had  but  an  agrarian  population — consisting  of 
husbandmen,  and  those  few  homely  and  rustic  artificers,  who, 
scattered  in  hamlets  over  the  land,  would  have  given  their  se- 
condary services  to  the  whole  population.     It  marks  an  interest- 
ing connexion  between  the  capabilities  of  the  soil,  and  the  con- 
dition of  social  life,  that  to  this  surplus  we  stand  indispensably 
indebted  for  our  crowded  cities,  our  thousand  manufactories  for 
the  supply  of  comforts  and  refinements  to  society,  our  wide  and 
diversified  commerce,  our  armies  of  protection,  our  schools  and 
colleges  of  education,  our  halls  of  legislation  and  justice,  even 
our  altars  of  piety  and  temple  services.     It  has  been  remarked 
'  ^y  geologists,  as  the  evidence  of  a  presiding  design  in  nature, 
j  that  the  waste  of  the  soil  is  so  nicely  balanced  by  the  supply 
:  from  the  disintegration  of  the  upland  rocks,  which  are  worn  and 
pulverized  at  such  a  rate,  as  to  keep  up  a  good  vegetable  mould 
on  the  surface  of  the  earth.     But  each  science  teems  with  the 
like  evidences  of  a  devising  and  intelligent  God  ;  and  when  we 
I  view  aright  the  many  beneficent  functions,  to  which,  through 
1  the  instrumentality  of  its  siu-plus  produce,  the  actual  degree  of 
I  the  earth's  fertility  is  subservient,  we  cannot  imagine  a  more 
I  wondrous  and  beautiful  adaptation  between  the  state  of  external 
nature  and  the  mechanism  of  human  society."* 

*  Political  Economy  in  connexion  with  the  moral  State  and  Moral  Prospects  of 
; Society.  C.  ii,  Art.  10.  In  the  appendix  to  this  work  on  the  subject  of  rent,  there 
'are  further  observations  tending  to  prove  that  "  there  is  an  optimism  in  the  actual 

constitution  of  the  land,  as  in  every  thing  else  that  has  proceeded  from  the  hand  of 

the  Almighty. 


166  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 


CHAPTER  VII. 

On  those  special  Affections  ivhich  conduce  to  the  economic  well- 
being  of  Society. 

1.  We  now  proceed  to   consider  the  economic,  in  contra-dis- 
tinction  to  the  civil  and  poHtical  well-being  of  society,  to  the  ex- 
tent that  this  is  dependent  on  certain  mental  tendencies — whether 
these  can  be   demonstrated  by  analysis  to  be   only  secondary 
results  or  in  themselves  to  be  simple  elements  of  the  human 
constitution.     We  may  be  said  indeed,  to  have  already  bordered 
on  this  part  of  our  argument — when  considering  the  origin  and 
the  rights  of  property ;  or  the  manner  in  which  certain  posses- 
sory affections,  that  appear  even  in  the  infancy  of  the  mind  and 
anticipate  by  many  years  the  exercise  of  human  wisdom,  lead  to 
a  better  distribution,  both  of  the  earth  and  of  all  the  valuables 
which  are  upon  it,  than  human  wisdom  could  possibly  have  de- 
vised, or  at  least  than  human  power  without  the  help  of  these 
special  affections  could  have  carried  into  effect.     For  there  might 
be  a  useful  economy  sanctioned  by  law,  yet  which  law  could  not 
have  securely  established,  unless  it  had  had  a  foundation  in  na- 
ture.    For  in  this  respect,  there  is  a  limit  to  the  force  even  of  the 
mightiest  despotism — insomuch  that  the  most  absolute  monarch 
on  the  face  of  the  earth  must  so  far  conform  himself,  to  the  in- 
delible human  nature  of  the  subjects  over  whom  he  proudly  bears 
the  sway ;   else,  in  the  reaction  of  their  outraged  principles  and 
feelings,  they  would  hurl  him  from  his  throne.     And  thus  it  is 
well,  that,  so  very  generally  in  the  different  countries  of  the 
world,  law,  both  in  her  respect  for  the  possessory  and  acquired 
rights  of  property  and  in  her  enforcement  of  them,  has,  instead 
of  chalking  out  an  arbitrary  path  for  herself,  only  followed  where 
nature  beforehand  had  pointed  the  way.     It  is  far  better,  that, 
rather  than  devise  a  jurisprudence  made  up  of  her  ov/n  capri- 
cious inventions — she  should,  to  so  great  an  extent,  have  but  ra- 1 
tified  a  prior  jurisprudence,  founded  on  the  original  or  at  least] 
the  universal  affections  of  humanity.     We  know  few  things  more 
instructive  than  a  study  of  the  mischievous  effects,  which  attend  1 
a  deviation  from  this  course — of  which,  we  at  present  shall  state 
two  remarkable  instances.     The  evils  Avhich  ensue  when  law 
traverses  any  of  those  principles,  that  lie  deeply  seated  in  the  very 
make  and  constitution  of  the  mind,  bring  out  into  more  striking 
exhibition  the  superior  wisdom  of  that  nature  from  which  she  has 


THE    ECONOMIC    WELL-BEING    OP    SOCIETY.  157 

departed — even  as  the  original  perfection  of  a  mechanism  is 
never  more  fully  demonstrated,  than  by  the  contrast  of  those  re- 
peated failures,  which  shows  of  every  change  or  attempted  im- 
provement, that  it  but  deranges  or  deteriorates  the  operations  of 
the  instrument  in  question.  And  thus  too  it  is,  that  a  lesson  of 
sound  theology  may  be  gathered,  from  the  errors  with  their  ac- 
companying evils  of  unsound  legislation — on  those  occasions 
when  the  wisdom  of  man  comes  into  conflict  and  collision  with 
the  wisdom  of  God. 

2.  Of  the  two  instances  that  we  are  now  to  produce,  in  which 
law  hath  made  a  deviation  from  nature,  and  done  in  consequence 
a  tremendous  quantity  of  evil,  the  first  is  the  the  Tythe  System 
of  England.  We  do  not  think  that  the  provision  of  her  esta- 
blished clergy  is  in  any  way  too  liberal — but  very  much  the  re- 
verse. Still  we  hold  it  signally  unfortunate  that  it  should  have 
been  levied  so,  as  to  do  most  unnecessary  violence  to  the  pos- 
sessory feeling,  both  of  the  owners  and  occupiers  of  land  all  over 
the  country.  Had  the  tythe,  hke  some  other  of  the  public  bur- 
thens, been  commuted  into  a  pecuniary  and  yearly  tax  on  the 
proprietors — the  possessory  feeling  would  not  have  been  so  pain- 
fully or  so  directly  thwarted  by  it.  But  it  is  the  constant  intro- 
mission of  the  tythe  agents  or  proctors  with  the  fields,  and  the 
ipsa  corpora  that  are  within  the  limits  of  the  property-  -Avhich 
exposes  this  strong  natural  affection  to  an  annoyance  that  is  felt 
to  be  intolerable."'''  But  far  the  best  method  of  adjusting  the  state 
of  the  law  to  those  principles  of  ownership  which  are  anterior  to 
law,  and  which  all  its  authority  is  unable  to  quench — would  be 
a  commutation  into  land.  Let  the  church  property  in  each  pa- 
rish be  dissevered  in  this  way  from  its  main  territory  ;  and  then, 
both  for  the  lay  and  the  ecclesiastical  domain,  there  would  be  an 
accordance  of  the  legal  v,'ith  the  possessory  right.  It  is  because 
these  are  in  such  painful  dissonance,  under  the  existing  state  of 
things,  that  there  is  so  much  exasperation  in  England,  connected 
with  the  support  and  maintenance  of  her  clergy.     No  doubt  law 

*  The  following  example  of  the  thousands  which  might  be  alleged  will  show  how  apt 
the  possessory  feeling  is  to  revolt  against  the  legal  right,  and  at  length  to  overbear  it. 

The  fee-simple  of  '-he  Church  property  of  the  Dean  and  Chapter  of  Durham  is  in 
the  Dean  and  Chapter  of  Durham. 

The  custom  for  ages  has  been  to  let  houses  on  leases  of  forty  years,  and  lands  on 
leases  of  iwenty-one'  years,  at  small  reserved  rents,  these  leases  being  renewable  at 
the  end  of  seven  years,  at  the  pleasure  of  the  Dean  and  Chapter  on  the  payment  of 
arbitrary  fines— which  fines  however  as  aof  ually  levied  are  exceedingly  moderate,  one 
year  and  a  quarter  being  asked  for  houses,  and  one  and  a  half  for  lands. 

Several  of  the  families  of  the  occupiers  of  lands  and  houses  so  leased  have  been  in 
possession  for  generations— and  long  possession  has  given  to  some  of  these  occupiers 
such  a  strength  of  possessory  feeling,  that  they  have  the  sense  of  being  aggrieved,  if 
they  do  not  get  the  renewals  on  their  own  terms. 

14 


168  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

can  enforce  her  own  aiTangements,  however  arbitrary  and  unna- 
tural they  might  be  ;  but  it  is  a  striking  exhibition,  we  have  al- 
ways thought,  of  the  triumph  of  the  possessory  over  the  legal, 
that,  in  the  contests  between  the  two  parties,  the  clergy  have  con- 
stantly been  losing  ground.     And,  in  resistance  to  all  the  oppro- 
brium which  has  been  thrown  upon  them,  do  we  affirm,  that,  with 
a  disinterestedness  which  is  almost  heroic,  they  have,  in  deed 
and  in  practice,  forborne  to  the  average  extent  of  at  least  one 
half,  the  assertion  of  their  claims.      The  truth  is,  that  the  felt 
odium  which  attaches  to  the  system  ought  never  to  have  fallen 
upon  them.    It  is  an  inseparable  consequence  of  the  aiTangement 
itself,  by  which  law  hath  traversed  nature — so  as  to  be  constantly 
rubbing,  as  it  were,  against  that  possessory  feeling,  which  may  be 
regarded  as  one  of  the  strongest  of  her  instincts.      There  are  few 
reformations  that  would  do  more  to  sweeten  the  breath  of  Eng- 
lish society,  than  the  removal  of  this  sore  annoyance — the  brood- 
ing fountain  of  so  many  heartburnings  and  so  many  festerments, 
by  which  the  elements  of  an  unappeasable  warfare  are  ever  at 
work  between  the  landed  interest  of  the  country,  and  far  the  most 
important  class  of  its  public  functionaries  ;   and,  what  is  the  sad- 
dest perversity  of  all,  those,  whose  office  it  is  by  the  mild  per- 
suasions of  Christianity,  to  train  the  population  of  our  land  in 
the  lessons  of  love  and  peace  and  righteousness — they  are  forced 
by  the  necessities  of  a  system  which  many  of  them  deplore,  into 
the  attitude  of  extortioners  ;   and  placed  in  that  very  current, 
along  which  a  people's  hatred  and  a  people's  obloquy  are  wholly 
unavoidable.*     Even  under  the  theocracy  of  the  Jews,  the  sys- 
tem of  tithes  was  with  difficulty  upholden  ;  and  many  are  the  re- 
monstrances which  the  gifted  seers  of  Israel  held  with  its  people, 
for  having  brought  of  the  lame  and  the  diseased  as  offerings. 
Such,  in  fact,  is  the  violence  done  by  this  system  to  the  posses- 
sory feelings,  that  a  conscientious  submission  to  its  exactions, 
may  be  regarded  as  a  most  decisive  test  of  religious  obedience 
— such  an  obedience,  indeed,  as  was  but  ill  maintained,  even  in 
the  days  of  the  Hebrew  polity,  although  it  had  the  force  of  tem- 
poral sanctions,  with  the  miracles  and  manifestations  of  a  pre- 
siding deity  to  sustain  it.     Unless  by  the  express  appointment 
of  heaven,  this  yoke  of  Judaism,  unaccompanied  as  it  now  is  by 


*  There  is  often  the  utmost  injustice  in  tliat  professional  odium  which  is  laid  upon 
a  whole  order,  and  none  have  suffered  more  under  it,  than  the  clergy  of  England  have, 
from  the  sweeping  and  indiscriminate  charges,  which  have  been  preferred  against 
them,  by  the  demagogues  of  our  land.  We  believe  that  nothing  has  given  more  of 
edge  and  currency  to  these  invectives,  than  the  very  unfortunate  way  in  which  their 
maintenance  has  been  provided  for  ;  and  many  are  the  amiable  and  accomplished  in- 
dividuals among  themselves  to  whom  it  is  a  matter  of  downright  agony. 


THE    ECONOMIC    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY  159 

the  peculiar  and  preternatural  enforcements  of  that  dispensation, 
ought  never  to  have  been  perpetuated  in  the  days  of  Christianity. 
There  are  distinct,  and,  wc  hold,  valid  reasons,  for  the  national 
maintenance  of  an  order  of  men  in  the  capacity  of  religious  in- 
structors to  the  people.  But  maintenance  in  a  way  so  obnox- 
ious to  nature,  is  alike  adverse  to  a  sound  civil  and  a  sound 
Christian  policy.  Both  the  cause  of  religion  and  the  cause  of 
loyalty  have  suffered  by  it.  The  alienation  of  the  church's  wealth, 
were  a  deadly  blow  to  the  best  and  highest  interests  of  England  ; 
but  there  are  few  things  which  would  conduce  more  to  the 
strength  and  peace  of  our  nation,  than  a  fair  and  right  commu- 
tation of  it. 

3.  Our  next  very  flagrant  example  of  a  mischievous  collision 
between  the  legal  and  the  possessory,  is  the  English  system  of 
poor  laws.  By  law  each  man  who  can  make  good  his  plea  of 
necessity,  has  a  claim  for  the  relief  of  it,  from  the  owners  or  oc- 
cupiers of  the  soil,  or  from  the  owners  and  occupiers  of  houses  ; 
and  never,  till  the  end  of  time,  will  all  the  authority,  and  all  the 
enactments  of  the  statute-book,  be  able  to  divest  them  of  the 
feeling,  that  their  property  is  invaded.  Law  never  can  so  coun- 
terwork the  strong  possessory  feeling,  as  to  reconcile  the  propri- 
etors of  England  to  this  legalized  enormity,  or  rid  them  of  the 
sensation  of  a  perpetual  violence.  It  is  tliis  mal-adjustment  be- 
tween the  voice  that  nature  gives  forth  on  the  right  of  property, 
and  the  voice  that  arbitrary  law  gives  forth  upon  it — it  is  this, 
which  begets  something  more  than  a  painful  insecurity  as  to  the 
stability  of  their  possessions.  There  is  besides,  a  positive, 
and  what  we  should  call,  a  most  natural  irritation.  That  strong 
possessory  feeling,  by  which  each  is  wedded  to  his  own  domain 
in  the  relation  of  its  rightful  proprietor ;  and  which  they  can  no 
more  help,  because  as  much  a  part  of  their  original  constitution, 
than  the  parental  feeling  by  which  each  is  wedded  to  his  own 
family  in  the  relation  of  its  natural  protector — this  strong  pos- 
sessory feeling,  we  say,  is,  under  their  existing  economy,  sub" 
ject  all  over  England  to  a  perpetuat  and  most  painful  annoyance. 
And  accordingly  we  do  find  the  utmost  acerbity  of  tone  and 
temper,  among  the  upper  classes  of  England,  in  reference  to 
their  poor.  We  are  not  sure,  indeed,  if  there  be  any  great  dif- 
ference, with  many  of  them,  between  the  feeling  which  they 
have  towards  the  poor,  and  the  feeling  which  they  have  towards 
poachers.  It  is  true  that  the  law  is  on  the  side  of  the  one,  and 
against  the  other.  Yet  it  goes  most  strikingly  to  prove,  how 
impossible  it  is  for  law  to  carry  the  acquiescence  of  the  heart, 
when  it  contravenes  the  primary  and  urgent  affections  of  na- 
ture— that  paupers  are  in  any  degree  assimilated  to  poachers  in 


160  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

the  public  imELgination ;  and  that  the  inroads  of  both  upon  pro- 
perty should  be  resented,  as  if  both  alike  were  a  sort  of  tres- 
pass or  invasion. 

4.  And  it  is  further  interesting  to  observe  the  effect  of  this 
unnatural  state  of  things  on  the  paupers  themselves.  Even  in 
their  deportment,  we  might  read  an  unconscious  homage  to  the 
possessory  right.  And  whereas,  it  has  been  argued  in  behalf 
of  a  poor-rate,  that,  so  far  from  degrading,  it  sustains  an  inde- 
pendence  of  spirit  among  the  peasantry,  by  turning  that  which 
would  have  been  a  matter  of  beggary  into  a  matter  of  rightful 
and  manly  assertion — there  is  none  who  has  attended  the  meet- 
ing of  a  parish  vestry,  that  will  not  readily  admit,  the  total  dis- 
similarity which  obtains  between  the  assertion  to  a  right  of  main- 
tenance, and  the  assertion  of  any  other  right  whatever,  whether 
in  the  field  of  war  or  of  patriotism.  There  may  be  much  of 
the  insolence  of  beggary ;  but  along  with  this,  there  is  a  most 
discernible  mixture  of  its  mean,  and  crouching,  and  ignoble  sor- 
didness.  There  is  no  common  quality  whatever  between  the 
clamorous  onset  of  this  worthless  and  dissipated  crew,  and  the 
generous  hatt\e-cry  pro  aris  et  focis,  in  which  the  humblest  of 
our  population  will  join — when  paternal  acres,  or  the  rights  of 
any  actually  holden  property  are  invaded.  In  the  mind  of  the 
pauper,  with  all  his  challenging  and  all  his  boisterousness,  there 
is  still  the  latent  impression,  that,  after  all,  there  is  a  certain 
want  of  firmness  about  his  plea.  He  is  not  altogether  sure  of 
the  ground  upon  which  he  is  standing ;  and,  in  spite  of  all  that 
law  has  done  to  pervert  his  imagination,  the  possessory  right  of 
those  against  whom  he  prefers  his  demand,  stares  him  in  the  face, 
and  disturbs  him  not  a  little  out  of  that  confidence,  wherewith 
a  man  represents  and  urges  the  demands  of  unquestionable  jus- 
tice. In  spite  of  himself,  he  cannot  avoid  having  somewhat 
the  look  and  the  consciousness  of  a  poacher.  And  so  the  eftect 
of  England's  most  unfortunate  blunder,  has  been,  to  alienate 
on  the  one  hand  her  rich  from  her  poor ;  and  on  the  other  to 
debase  into  the  very  spirit  and  sordidness  of  beggary,  a  large 
and  ever-increasing  mass  of  her  population.  There  is  but  one 
way,  we  can  never  cease  to  afllirm,  by  which  this  grievous  dis- 
temper of  the  body  politic  can  be  removed.  And  that  is,  by 
causing  the  law  of  property  to  harmonize  with  the  strong  and 
universal  instincts  of  nature  in  regard  to  it ;  by  making  the  pos- 
sessory right  to  be  at  least  as  inviolable  as  the  common  sense  of 
mankind  would  make  it ;  and  as  to  the  poor,  by  utterly  recall- 
ing the  blunder  that  England  made,  when  she  turned  into  a 
matter  of  le^al  constraint,  that  which  should  ever  be  a  matter  of 
love  and  liberty,  and  when  she  aggravated  ten-fold  the  depen- 


THE    ECONOMIC    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  161 

dence  and  misery  of  the  lower  classes,  by  divorcing  the  cause 
of  humanity  from  the  willing  generosities,  the  spontaneous  and 
unforced  sympathies  of  our  nature. 

5.  But  this  brings  into  view  another  of  our  special  affections — 
our  compassion  for  the   distress,  including,  as  one  of  its  most 
prominent  and  frequently  recurring  objects,  our  compassion  for 
the   destitution  of  others.     We  have   already  seen,  how  nature 
hath  provided,  by  one  of  its  implanted  affections,  for  the  esta- 
blishment of  property  ;   and  for  the  respect  in  which,  amid  all  its 
inequalities,  it  is  held  by  society.      But  helpless  destitution  forms 
one  extreme  of  this  inequaUty,  which  a  mere  system  of  property 
appears  to  leave  out ;  and  which,  if  not  otherwise  provided  for 
by  the  wisdom  of  nature  in  the  constitution  of  the  human  mind, 
would  perhaps  justify  an  attempt  by  the  wisdom  of  man  to  pro- 
vide for  it  in   the  constitution  of  human  law.     We   do   not  in- 
stance, at  present,  certain  other  securities  which  have   been  in- 
stituted by  the  hand  of  nature,  and   which,  if  not  traversed  and 
enfeebled  by  a  legislation   wholly  uncalled  for,  would  of  them- 
selves, prevent   the   extensive   prevalence  of  want  in    society. 
These  are  the  urgent  law  of  self-preservation,   prompting  to  in- 
dustry on  the  one  hand  and  to   economy  on  the  other ;  and  the 
strong  law  of  relative  affection — which  laws,  if  not  tampered 
with  and  undermined  in  their   force  and  eflicacy  by  the  law  of 
pauperism,    would   not  have  relieved,  but  greatly  better,  would 
have  prevented  (he  vast   majority  of  those  cases   which  fill  the 
workhouses,  and  swarm  around  the   vestries  of  England.     Still 
these,  however,  woidd  not  have   prevented  all  poverty.     A  few 
instances,  like  those  which  are  so   quietly  and  manageably,  but 
withal  effectually  met  in  the  country  parishes  of  Scotland,  would 
still  occur  in    every  little  community,  however  virtuous  or  well 
regulated.      And  in  regard  to  these,  there  is  another  law  of  the 
mental  constitution,  by  which  nature  hath  made  special  provision 
for  them — even   the   beautiful   law   of  compassion,  in  virtue  of 
which  the  sight  of  another  in  agony,   (and   most  of  all  perhaps 
in  the  agony  of  pining  hunger,)   would,  if  unrelieved,  create  a 
sensation  of  discomfort  in  the   heart  of  the  observer,   scarcely 
inferior  to  what  he  should   have   felt,  had   the  suffering  and  the 
agony  been  his  own. 

6.  But  in  England,  the  state,  regardless  of  all  the  hidices 
which  nature  had  planted  in  the  human  constitution,  hath  taken 
the  regulation  of  this  matter  into  its  own  hands.  By  its  law  of 
pauperism,  it  hath,  in  the  first  instance,  ordained  for  the  poor  a 
legal  property  in  the  soil ;  and  thereby,  running  counter  to  the 
strong  possessory  affection,  it  hath  done  violence  to  the  natural 
and  original  distribution  of  the  land,  and  loosened  tlie  secure 
14* 


162  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

hold  of  each  separate  owner,  on  the  portion  which  belongs  to 
him.  And  in  the  second  instance,  distrustful  of  the  efficacy  of 
compassion,  it,  by  way  of  helping  forward  its  languid  energies, 
hath  applied  the  strong  hand  of  power  to  it.  Now  it  so  hap- 
pens, that  nothing  more  effectually  stifles  compassion,  or  puts 
it  to  flight,  than  to  be  thus  meddled  with.  The  spirit  of  kind- 
ness utterly  refuses  the  constraints  of  authority ;  and  law 
in  England,  by  taking  the  business  of  charity  upon  itself,  instead 
of  supplementing,  hath  well  nigh  destroyed  the  anterior  provi- 
sion made  lor  it  by  nature — thus  leaving  it  to  be  chiefly  provided 
for,  by  methods  and  by  a  machinery  of  its  own.  The  proper 
function  of  law  is  to  enforce  the  rights  of  justice,  or  to  defend 
against  the  violation  of  them  ;  and  never  does  it  make  a  more 
flagrant  or  a  more  hurtful  invasion,  beyond  the  confines  of  its 
own  legitimate  tenitory — than,  when  confounding  humanity  v^ith 
justice,  it  would  apply  the  same  enforcements  to  the  one  virtue 
as  to  the  other.  It  should  have  taken  a  lesson  from  the  strong 
and  evident  distinction  which  nature  hath  made  between  these 
two  virtues,  in  her  construction  of  our  moral  system  ;  and  should 
have  observed  a  corresponding  distinction  in  its  own  treatn^cnt 
of  them — resenting  the  violation  of  the  one  ;  but  leaving  the 
other  to  the  free  interchanges  of  good-will  on  the  side  of  the 
dispenser,  and  of  gratitude  on  the  side  of  the  recipient.  When 
law,  distrustful  of  the  compassion  that  is  in  all  hearts,  enacted  a 
system  of  compulsory  relief,  lest,  in  our  neglect  of  others,  the 
indigent  should  starve  ;  it  did  incomparably  worse,  than  if,  dis- 
trustful of  the  appetite  of  hunger,  it  had  enacted  for  the  use  of 
food  a  certain  regimen  of  times  and  quantities,  lest,  neglectful 
of  ourselves,  our  bodies  might  have  perished.  Nature  has 
made  a  better  provision  than  this  for  both  these  interests  ;  but 
law  has  done  more  mischief  by  interference  with  the  one,  than  it 
could  ever  have  done  by  interference  with  the  other.  It  could  not 
have  quelled  the  appetite  of  hunger,  which  still,  in  spite  of  all  the 
law's  officiousness,  would  have  remained  the  great  practical  im- 
pellent to  the  use  of  food,  for  the  well-being  of  our  physical 
economy.  But  it  has  done  much  to  qv.eW  and  to  overbear  the 
affection  of  compassion — that  never-failing  impellent,  in  a  free 
and  natural  state  of  things,  to  deeds  of  charity,  for  the  Mell-being 
of  the  social  economy.  The  evils  v.hich  have  ensued  are  of 
too  potent  and  pressing  a  character  to  require  description.  They 
have  placed  England  in  a  grievous  dilemma,  from  which  she 
can  only  be  extricated,  by  the  new  modelling  of  this  part  of  her 
statute-book,  and  a  nearer  conformity  of  its  provisions  to  the 
principles  of  natural  jurisprudence.  Meanwhile  they  afford  an 
emphatic  demonstration  for  the  superior  wisdom  of  nature,  which 


THE    ECONOMIC    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  163 

is  never  so  decisively  or  so  triumphantly  attested,  as  by  the  mis- 
chief that  is  done,  when  her  processes  are  contravened  or  her 
principles  are  violated.* 

7.  We  are  aware  of  a  certain  ethical  system,  that  would  ob- 
literate the  distinction  between  justice  and  humanity,  by  running 
or  resolving  the  one  into  the  other — affirming  of  the  former  more 
particularly,  that  all  its  virtue  is  founded  on  its  utility  ;  and  that 
therefore  justice,  to  which  may  be  added  truth,  is  no  further  a 
virtue,  than  as  it  is  instrumental  of  good  to  men — thus  making 
both  truth  and  justice,  mere  species  or  modifications  of  benevo- 
lence. Now,  as  we  have  already  stated,  it  is  not  with  the  theory 
of  morals,  but  with  the  moral  constitution  of  man  that  we  have 
properly  to  do;  and,  most  certain  it  is,  that  man  does  feel  the 
moral  rightness  both  of  justice  and  truth,  irrespective  altogether 
of  their  consequences — or,  at  least,  apart  from  any  such  view  to 
these  consequences  at  the  time,  as  the  mind  is  at  all  conscious 
of  There  is  an  appetite  of  our  sentient  nature  wliich  terminates 
in  food,  and  that  is  irrespective  of  all  its  subsequent  utilities  to 
the  animal  economy  ;  and  there  is  an  appetite  for  doing  ^vhat  is 
right  which  terminates  in  virtue,  and  which  bears  as  little  respect 
to  its  utilities — whether  for  the  good  of  self  or  for  the  good  of 
society.  The  man  whom  some  temptation  to  what  is  dishonor- 
able would  put  into  a  state  of  recoil  and  restlessness,  has  no 
other  aim,  in  the  resistance  he  makes  to  it,  than  simply  to  make 
full  acquittal  of  his  integrity.  This  is  his  landing  place  ;  and  he 
looks  no  further.  There  maybe  a  thousand  dependent  blessings 
to  humanity,  trom  the  observation  of  moral  rectitude.  But  the 
pure  and  simple  appetency  for  rectitude,  rests  upon  this  as  its 
object,  without  any  onward  reference  to  the  consequences  which 
shall  flow  from  it.  This  consideration  alone  is  sufiicicnt  to  dis- 
pose of  the  system  of  utility — as  being  metaphysically  incorrect 
in  point  of  conception,  and  incorrect  in  the  expression  of  it.  If 
a  man  can  do  virtuously,  when  not  aiming  at  the  useful,  and  not 
so  much  as  thinking  of  it — then  to  design  and  execute  what  is 
useful,  may  be  and  is  a  virtue  ;  but  it  is  not  all  virtue. "f" 

*  Without  contending  for  the  langiiase  of  our  older  moralists,  the  distinction 
which  they  mean  to  express,  by  virtues  of  perfect  and  imperfect  obligation,  lias  a 
foundation  in  reality  and  in  the  nature  of  things — as  between  justice  where  the  obli- 
gation on  one  side  implies  a  counterpart  right  upon  the  other,  and  benevolence  to  which, 
whatever  the  obligation  may  be  on  the  part  of  the  dis].)enser,  there  is  no  corresponding 
right  on  the  part  of  the  recipient.  The  proper  office  of  law  is  to  enforce  the  former 
virtues.  When  it  attempts  to  enforce  the  latter,  it  makes  a  mischievous  extension  of 
itself  beyond  its  own  legitimate  boundaries. 

t  If  our  moral  judgment  tell  that  some  particular  thing  is  right,  without  our  advert- 
ing to  its  utility — then  though  all  that  we  hold  to  be  morally  right  should  be  proved  by 
observation  to  yield  the  maximum  of  utility,  utility  is  not  on  that  account  the  mind's 


164  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

8.   There   is  one   way  in  which  a  theorist  may  take   refuge 
from  this  conckision.     It  is  quite  palpable,  that  a  man  often  feels 
himself  to  be  doing  virtuously — when,  to  all  sense,  he  is  not 
thinking  of  the  utilities  which  follow  in  its  train.     But  then  it 
may  be  affirmed,  that  he  really  is  so  thinking — although  he  is  not 
sensible  of  it.     There  can  be  little  doubt  of  such  being  the  ac- 
tual economy  of  the  world,  such  the  existing  arrangement  of  its 
laws  and  its   sequences — that   virtue    and   happiness  are  very 
closely  associated ;  and  that,  no  less  in  those  instances,  where 
the  resulting  happiness  is  not  at  all  thought  of,   than  in  those 
where  happiness  is  the  direct  and  declared  object  of  the  virtue. 
Who  can  doubt  that  truth  and  justice  bear  as  manifold  and  as 
important  a  subserviency  to  the  good  of  the  species  as  benefi- 
cence does  ? — and  yet  it  is  only  with  the  latter,  that  this  good  is 
the  object  of  our  immediate  contemplation.     But  then  it  is  af- 
firmed, that,  when  two  terms  are  constantly  associated  in  nature, 
there  must  be  as  constant  an  association  of  them  in  the  mind  of 
the  observer  of  nature — an  association  at  length  so  habitual,  and 
therefore  so  rapid,  that  we  become  utterly  unconscious  of  it. 
Of  this  we  have  examples,  in  the  most  frequent  and  familiar  ope- 
rations of  human  life.     In  the  act  of  reading,  every  alphabetical 
letter  must  have  been  present  to  the  mind — yet  how  many  thou- 
sands of  them,  in  the  course  of  a  single  hour,  must  have  passed  in 
fleeting  succession,  without  so  much  as  one  moment's  sense  of 
their  presence,  which  the  mind  has  any  recollection  of.     And  it 
is  the  same  in  listening  to  an  acquaintance,  when  we  receive  the 
whole  meaning  and  effect  of  his  discourse,  without  the  distinct 
consciousness  of  very  many  of  those  individual  words  which  still 
were  indispensable  to  the  meaning-     Nay,  there  are  other  and 
yet  more  inscrutable  mysteries  in  the  human  constitution ;  and 
which  relate,  not  to  the  thoughts  that  we  conceive  without  being 
sensible  of  them,  but  even  to  the  volitions  that  we  put  forth,  and 
to  very  many  of  which  we  are  alike  insensible.     We  have  only 
to  reflect  on  the  number  and  complexity  of  those  muscles  which 
are  put  into  action,  in  the  mere  processes  of  writing  or  walking, 
or  even  of  so  balancing  ourselves  as  to   maintain  a  posture  of 
stability.     It  is  understood  to  be  at  the  bidding  of  the  will,  that 
each  of  our  muscles  performs  its  distinct  office  ;  and  yet,  out  of 
the  countless  volitions,  which  had  their  part  and  their  play,  in 

criterion  for  the  rightness  of  this  particular  thing.  God  hath  given  us  the  sense  of  what 
is  right ;  and  He  hath  besides  so  ordained  the  system  of  things,  that  what  is  right  is 
generally  that  which  is  most  useful — yet,  in  many  instances,  it  is  not  the  perceived 
usefulness,  which  makes  us  recognize  it  to  be  right.  We  agree  too  with  Bishop  But- 
ler in  not  venturing  lo  assume  that  God's  sole  end  in  creation  was  the  production  of 
the  greatest  happiness. 


THE    ECONOMIC    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  165 

these  complicated,  and  yet  withal  most  familiar  and  easily  prac- 
ticable operations — how  many  there  are  which  wholly  escape  the 
eye  of  consciousness.  And  thus  too,  recourse  may  be  had  to 
the  imagination  of  certain  associating  processes,  too  hidden  for 
being  the  objects  of  sense  at  the  time,  and  too  fugitive  for  being 
the  objects  of  remembrance  afterwards.  And  on  the  strength  of 
these  it  may  be  asked — how  are  we  to  know,  that  the  utility  of 
truth  and  justice  is  not  present  to  the  mind  of  man,  when  he  dis- 
charges the  obligation  of  these  virtues  ;  and  how  are  we  to  know, 
that  it  is  not  the  undiscoverable  thought  of  this  utility,  which 
forms  the  impellent  principle  of  that  undiscoverable  volition,  by 
which  man  is  urged  to  the  performance  of  them  1 

9.  Now  we  are  precluded  from  replying  to  this  question 
in  any  other  way,  than  that  the  theory  which  requires  such 
an  argument  for  its  support,  may  be  said  to  fetch  all  its  materials 
from  the  region  of  conjecture.  It  ventures  on  the  affirmation  of 
what  is  going  on  in  a  terra  incognita  ;  and  we  have  not  the 
means  within  our  reach,  for  meeting  it  in  the  terms  of  a  posi- 
tive contradiction.  But  we  can  at  least  say,  that  a  mere 
argumentiim  ah  ignoranfia  is  not  a  sufficient  basis  on  which 
to  ground  a  philosophic  theory ;  and  that  thus  to  fetch  an  hy- 
pothesis from  among  the  inscrutabilities  of  the  mind,  to  speak 
of  processes  going  on  there  so  quick  and  so  evanescent  that 
the  eye  of  consciousness  carmot  discover  them — is  to  rear  a 
superstructure  not  upon  the  facts  which  lie  within  the  limit  of 
separation  between  the  known  and  the  unknov/n,  but  upon  the 
fancies  which  lie  without  this  limit.  A  great  deal  more  is  ne- 
cessary for  the  establishment  of  an  assertion,  than  that  an 
adversary  cannot  disprove  it.  A  thousand  possibilities  may  bo 
affirmed  which  are  susceptible  neither  of  proof  nor  of  disproof ; 
and  surely  it  were  the  worst  of  logic  to  accept  as  proof,  the 
mere  circumstance  that  they  are  beyond  the  reach  of  dis- 
proof. They,  in  fact,  he  alike  beyond  the  reach  of  both ;  in 
which  case  they  should  be  ranked  among  the  figments  of 
mere  imagination,  and  not  among  the  findings  of  experience. 
How  are  we  to  know  but  that,  in  the  bosom  of  our  great  plane- 
tary amplitude,  there  do  not  float,  and  in  elliptic  orbits  round 
the  sun,  pieces  of  matter  vastly  too  diminutive  for  oui  tele- 
scopes ;  and  that  thus  the  large  intermediate  spaces  between 
the  known  bodies  of  the  system,  mstead  of  so  many  deso- 
late blanks,  are  in  fact  peopled  with  little  worlds — all  of  them 
teeming,  like  our  own,  with  busy  and  cheerful  animation.  Now, 
in  the  powerlessness  of  our  existing  telescopes,  we  do  not 
know  but  it  may  be  so.  But  we  will  not  believe  that  it  is  so,  till 
a  telescope  of  power  enough  be  invented,  for  disclosing  this 


166  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

scene  of  wonders  to  our  observation.  And  it  is  the  same  of 
the  moral  theory  that  now  engages  us.  It  rests,  not  upon 
what  it  finds  among  the  arcana  of  the  human  spirit,  but  upon 
what  it  fancies  to  be  there  ;  and  they  are  fancies  too  which 
we  cannot  deny,  but  which  we  will  not  admit — till,  by  some  im- 
proved power  of  internal  observation,  they  are  turned  into 
findings.  We  are  quite  sensible  of  the  virtuousness  of  truth ; 
but  we  have  not  yet  been  made  sensible,  that  we  always  recog- 
nize this  virtuousness,  because  of  a  glance  we  have  had  of 
the  utility  of  truth — though  only  perhaps  for  a  moment  of 
time,  too  minute  and  microscopical  for  being  noticed  by  the 
naked  eye  of  consciousness.  We  can  go  no  further  upon 
this  question  than  the  light  of  evidence  will  carry  us.  And, 
while  we  both  feel  in  our  own  bosoms  and  observe  in  the  testi- 
mony of  those  around  us,  the  moral  deference  which  is  due  to 
truth  and  justice — we  have  not  yet  detected  this  to  be  the  same 
with  that  deference,  which  we  render  to  the  virtue  of  benevo- 
lence. Or,  in  other  words,  we  do  venerate  and  regard  these 
as  virtues — while,  for  aught  ive  knoiv,  the  utility  of  them  is  not 
in  all  our  thoughts.  We  agree  with  Dugald  Stewart  in  think- 
ing, that,  "  considerations  of  utility  do  not  seem  to  us  the 
only  ground  of  the  approbation  we  bestow  on  this  disposi- 
tion." He  further  observes,  that,  "  abstracting  from  all  re- 
gard to  consequences,  there  is  something  pleasing  and  amiable 
in  sincerity,  openness,  and  truth  ;  something  disagreeable  and 
disgusting  in  duplicity,  equivocation,  and  falsehood.  Dr. 
Hutcheson  himself,  the  great  patron  of  that  theory  which  re- 
solves all  moral  qualities  into  benevolence,  confesses  this — for 
he  speaks  of  a  sense  which  leads  us  to  approve  of  veracity,  dis- 
tinct from  the  sense  which  approves  of  qualities  useful  to  man- 
kind."* 

10.  However  difficult  it  may  be,  to  resolve  the  objective 
question  which  respects  the  constitution  of  virtue  in  itself — in 
the  subjective  question,  which  respects  the  constitution  of 
the  mind,  we  cannot  but  acknowledge  the  broad  and  palpable 
distinction,  which  the  Author  of  our  moral  frame  hath  made, 
between  justice  and  truth  on  the  one  hand,  and  benevolence  on 
the  other.  And  it  had  been  well,  if  law-givers  had  discrimina 
ted,  as  nature  has  done,  between  justice  and  humanity — although 
the  mischief  of  their  unfortunate  deviation  serves,  all  the  more 
strikingly,  to  prove  the  adaptation  of  our  moral  constitution  ta 
the  exigencies  of  human  society.  The  law  of  pauperism 
hath  assimilated  beneficence  to  justice,  by  enacting  the  former, 

♦  Stewart's  "  Outlines  of  Moral  Philosophy,"  Art.  Veracity. 


THE    ECONOMIC    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  167 

m  the  very  way  that  it  does  the  latter  ;  and  enforcing  what  it  has 
thus  enacted  by  penalties.  Beneficence  loses  altogether  its 
proper  and  original  character — when,  instead  of  moving  on  the 
impulse  of  a  spontaneous  kindness  that  operates  from  within,  it 
moves  on  the  impulse  of  a  legal  obligation  from  without.  Should 
law  specify  the  yearly  sum  that  must  pass  from  my  hands  to  the 
destitute  around  me — then,  it  is  not  beneficence  which  has  to 
do  with  the  matter.  What  I  have  to  surrender,  law  hath  already 
ordained  to  be  the  property  of  another  ;  and  I,  in  giving  it  up, 
am  doing  an  act  of  justice  and  not  an  act  of  liberality.  To 
exercise  the  virtue  of  beneficence,  I  must  go  beyond  the  sum 
that  is  specified  by  law  ;  and  thus  law  in  her  attempts  to  seize 
upon  beneficence,  and  to  bring  her  under  rule,  hath  only  forced 
her  to  retire  within  a  narrower  territory,  on  which  alone  it  is  that 
she  can  put  forth  the  free  and  native  characteristics  which  belong 
to  her.  Law,  in  fact,  cannot,  with  any  possible  ingenuity,  obtain 
an  imperative  hold  on  beneficence  at  all — for  her  very  touch 
transforms  this  virtue  into  another.  Should  law  go  forth  on  the 
enterprize  of  arresting  beneficence  upon  her  own  domain,  and 
there  laying  upon  her  its  authoritative  dictates — it  would  find  that 
beneficence  had  eluded  its  pursuit ;  and  that  all  which  it  could 
possibly  do,  was  to  wrest  from  her  that  part  of  the  domain  of 
which  it  had  taken  occupation,  and  bring  it  under  the  authority 
of  justice.  When  it  thought  to  enact  for  beneficence,  it  only,  in 
truth,  enacted  a  new  division  of  property  ;  and  in  so  doing,  it  con- 
travenes the  possessory,  one  of  nature's  special  affections — 
while,  by  its  attempts  to  force  what  should  have  been  left  to  the 
free  exercise  of  compassion,  it  has  done  much  to  supersede  or  to 
extinguish  another  of  these  affections.  It  hath  so  pushed  for- 
ward the  line  of  demarcation — as  to  widen  the  space  which  jus- 
tice might  call  her  own,  and  to  contract  the  space  which  benefi- 
cence might  call  her  own.  But  never  will  law  be  able  to  make 
a  captive  of  beneficence,  or  to  lay  personal  arrest  upon  her.  It 
might  lessen  and  limit  her  means,  or  even  starve  her  into  utter  an- 
nihilation. But  never  can  it  make  a  living  captive  of  her.  It  is 
altogether  a  vain  and  hopeless  undertaking  to  legislate  on  the 
duties  of  beneficence  ;  for  the  very  nature  of  this  virtue,  is 
to  do  good  freely  and  willingly  with  its  own.  But  on  the  mo- 
ment that  law  interposes  to  any  given  extent  with  one's  pro- 
perty, to  that  extent  it  ceases  to  be  his  own  ;  and  any  good  that 
is  done  by  it  is  not  done  freely.  The  force  of  law  and  the  free- 
ness  of  love  cannot  amalgamate  the  one  with  the  other.  Like 
water  g.nd  oil  they  are  immiscible.  We  cannot  translate  benefi- 
cence into  the  statute-book  of  law,  without  expunging  it 
from  the  statute-book  of  the   heart ;    and,  to   whatever  extent 


168  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

we  make  it  the  object  of  compulsion,  to  that  extent  we  must 
destroy  it. 

11.  And  in  the  proportion  that  beneficence  is  put  to  flight,  is 
gratitude  put  to  flight  along  with  it.  The  proper  object  of  this 
emotion  is  another's  good-will.  But  I  do  not  hold  as  from  the 
good- will  of  another,  that  which  law  hath  enabled  me  to  plea  as 
my  own  right — nay  to  demand,  with  a  front  of  hardy  and  resolute 
assertion.  It  is  this  which  makes  it  the  most  delicate  and  dan- 
gerous of  all  ground — when  law  offers  to  prescribe  rules  for  the 
exercise  of  beneficence,  or  to  lay  its  compulsory  hand  on  a  virtue, 
the  very  freedom  of  which  is  indispensable  to  its  existence.  And 
it  not  only  extinguishes  the  virtue  ;  but  it  puts  an  end  to  all  those 
responses  of  glad  and  grateful  emotion,  which  its  presence  and 
its  smile  and  the  generosity  of  its  free-will  oflferings  awaken  in 
society.  It  is  laying  an  arrest  on  all  the  music  of  living  inter- 
course, thus  to  forbid  those  beautiful  and  delicious  echoes,  which 
are  reflected,  on  every  visit  of  unconstrained  mercy,  from  those 
families  that  are  gladdened  by  her  footsteps.  And  what  is  worse, 
it  is  substituting  in  their  place,  the  hoarse  and  jarring  discords  of 
the  challenge  and  the  conflict  and  the  angry  litigation.  We  may 
thus  see,  that  there  is  a  province  in  human  affairs,  on  v^hich  law 
should  make  no  entrance — a  certain  department  of  human  virtue 
wherein  the  moralities  should  be  left  to  their  ov,  n  unfettered  play, 
else  they  shall  be  frozen  into  utter  apathy — a  field  sacred  to 
liberty  and  good-will  that  should  ever  be  kept  beyond  the  reach 
of  jurisprudence  ;  or  on  which,  if  she  once  obtain  a  footing,  she 
will  spoil  it  of  all  those  unbought  and  unbidden  graces  that  na- 
tively adorn  it.  So  that  while  to  law  we  would  commit  the  de- 
fence of  society  from  all  the  aggressions  of  violence,  and  confide 
the  strict  and  the  stern  guardianship  of  the  interests  of  justice — 
we  should  tremble  for  humanity  lest  it  withered  and  expired  under 
the  grasp  of  so  rough  a  protector  ;  and  lest  before  a  countenance 
grave  as  that  of  a  judge,  and  grim  as  that  of  a  messenger-at-arms, 
this  frail  but  loveliest  of  the  virtues  should  be  turned,  as  if  by  the 
head  of  Medusa,  into  stone. 

12.  But  there  are  other  moral  ills  in  this  unfortunate  perver- 
sion, beside,  the  extinction  of  good-will  in  the  hearts  of  the 
affluent  and  of  gratitude  in  the  hearts  of  the  poor — though  it  be 
no  shght  mischief  to  any  community,  that  the  tie  of  kindliness 
between  these  two  orders  should  have  been  broken  ;  and  that  the 
business  of  charity,  which  when  left  spontaneous  is  so  fertile  in 
all  the  amenities  of  life,  should  be  transformed  into  a  fierce  war- 
fare of  rights,  from  its  very  nature  incapable  of  adjustment,  and, 
whether  they  be  the  encroached  upon  or  the  repelled,  subjecting 
both  parties  to  the  sense  of  a  perpetual  violence.     But  over  and 


THE    ECONOMIC    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETT.  169 

above  this,  there  are  other  distempers,  wherewith  it  hath  smitten 
the  social  economy  of  England,  and  of  which  experience  will 
««p^;^he  English  observer  with  many  a  vivid  recollection.  The 
reckless  but  withal  most  natural  improvidence  of  those  whom  the 
state  has  undertaken  to  provide  for,  seeing  that  law  hath  pro- 
claimed in  their  favour  a  discharge  from  the  cares  and  the  duties 
of  self-preservation — the  headlong  dissipation,  in  consequence — 
the  dissolution  of  family  ties,  for  the  same  public  and  pro- 
claimed charity  which  absolves  a  man  from  attention  to  him- 
self will  absolve  him  also  from  attention  to  his  relatives — the 
jdecay  and  interruption  of  sympathy  in  all  the  little  vicinities 
of  town  and  country,  for  each  man  under  this  system  of  an 
assured  and  universal  provision  feels  himself  absolved  too 
from  attention  to  his  neighbours — These  distempers  both  social 
and  economic  have  a  common  origin  ;  and  the  excess  of  them 
above  what  taketh  place  in  a  natural  state  of  things  may  all  be 
traced  to  the  unfortunate  aberration,  which,  in  this  instance,  the 
constitution  of  human  law  hath  made  from  the  constitution  of 
human  nature. 

13.  In  our  attempts  to  trace  the  rise  of  the  possessory  affec- 
tion and  of  a  sense  of  property,  we  have  not  been  able  to  disco- 
ver any  foundation  in  nature,  for  a  sentiment  that  we  often  hear 
impetuously  urged  by  the  advocates  of  the  system  of  pauperism 
— that  every  man  has  a  right  to  the  means  of  subsistence.  Na- 
ture does  not  connect  this  right  with  existence  ;  but  with  con- 
tinned  occupation,  and  with  another  principle,  to  which  it  also 
gives  the  sanction  of  its  voice — that,  each  man  is  legitimate  owner 
of  the  fruits  of  his  own  industry.  These  are  the  principles  on 
which  nature  hath  drawn  her  landmarks  over  every  territory  that 
is  peopled  and  cultivated  by  human  beings.  And  the  actual 
distribution  of  property  is  the  fruit,  partly  of  man's  own  direct 
aim  and  acquisition,  and  partly  of  circumstances  over  which  he 
had  no  control.  The  right  of  man  to  the  means  of  existence  on 
the  sole  ground  that  he  exists  has  been  loudly  and  vehemently 
asserted  ;  yet  is  a  factitious  sentiment  notwithstanding — tending 
to  efface  the  distinctness  of  nature's  landmarks,  and  to  traverse 
those  arrangements,  by  which  she  hath  provided  far  better  for  the 
peace  and  comfort  of  society,  nay  for  the  more  sure  and  liberal 
support  of  all  its  members.  It  is  true  that  nature,  in  fixing  the 
principles  on  which  man  has  a  right  to  the  fruits  of  the  earth,  to 
the  materials  of  his  subsistence,  has  left  out  certain  individuals 
of  the  human  family — some  outcast  stragglers,  who,  on  neither 
of  nature's  principles,  will  be  found  possessed  of  any  right  or  of 
any  property.  It  is  for  their  sake  that  human  law  hath  interposed, 
in  some  countries  of  the  world  ;  and,  bv  creating  or  ordaining  a 
15 


170  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

right  for  them,  has  endeavoured  to  make  good  the  deficiency  of 
natm-e.  But  if  justice  alone  could  have  ensured  a  right  ^stribu- 
tion  for  the  supply  of  want,  and  if  it  must  be  through  the  medium 
of  a  right  that  the  destitute  shall  obtain  their  maintenance — then, 
would  there  have  been  no  need  for  another  principle,  which  stands 
out  most  noticeably  in  our  nature  ;  and  compassion  would  have 
been  a  superfluous  part  of  the  human  constitution.  It  is  thus  that 
nature  provides  for  the  unprovided — not  by  unsetthng  their  limits 
which  her  previous  education  had  established  in  all  minds — not 
by  the  extension  of  a  right  to  every  man  ;  but  by  estabhshing  in 
behalf  of  those  some  men,  whom  accident  or  the  necessity  of  cir- 
cumstances or  even  their  own  misconduct  had  left  without  a  right, 
a  compassionate  interest  in  the  bosom  of  their  fellows.  They 
have  no  advocate  to  plead  for  them  at  the  bar  of  justice  ;  and 
therefore  nature  hath  furnished  them  with  a  gentler  and  more 
persuasive  advocate,  who  might  solicit  for  them  at  the  bar  of 
mercy ;  and,  for  their  express  benefit,  hath  given  to  most  men 
an  ear  for  pity,  to  many  a  hand  open  as  day  for  melting  charity. 
But  it  is  not  to  any  rare,  or  romantic  generosity,  that  she  hath 
confided  the  relief  of  their  wants.  She  hath  made  compassion 
one  of  the  strongest,  and,  in  spite  of  all  their  depravations  to 
which  humanity  is  exposed,  one  of  the  steadiest  of  our  universal 
instincts.  It  were  an  intolerable  spectacle  even  to.  the  inmates 
of  a  felon's  cell,  did  they  behold  one  of  their  fellows  in  the  ago- 
nies of  hunger ;  and  rather  than  endure  it,  would  they  share  their 
own  scanty  meal  with  them.*  It  were  still  more  intolerable  to 
the  householders  of  any  neighbourhood — insomuch  that,  where 
law  had  not  attempted  to  supersede  nature,  every  instance  of  dis- 
tress or  destitution  would,  whether  in  town  or  country,  give  rise 
to  an  internal  operation  of  charity  throughout  every  little  vicinity 
of  the  land.  The  mischief  which  law  hath  done,  by  trying  to 
mend  the  better  mechanism  which  nature  had  instituted,  is  itself 
a  most  impressive  testimony  to  the  wisdom  of  nature.  The 
perfection  of  her  arrangements,  is  never  more  strikingly  exhi- 
bited, than  by  those  evils  which  the  disturbance  of  them  brings 
upon  society — as  when  her  law  in  the  heart  has  been  overborne 

*  The  certainty  of  this  operation  is  beautifully  exemplified  in  a  passage  of  Mr. 
Buxton's  interesting  book  on  prisons — from  which  it  appears  that  there  is  no  allow- 
ance of  food  to  the  debtors,  and  a  very  inferior  allowance  of  food  to  the  criminals,  who 
are  confined  in  the  gaol  at  Bristol.  The  former  live  on  their  ovm  means  or  the  ca- 
sual charity  of  the  benevolent.  Instances  have  occurred  when  both  of  these  resources 
failed  them — and  starvation  would  have  ensued,  had  not  the  criminals,  rather  than 
endure  the  neighbourhood  of  such  a  suffering,  shared  their  own  scanty  pittance  along 
with  them — thus  affording  an  argumentum  a  fortiore  for  a  like  strength  of  compassion 
tliroughout  the  land — seeing  that  it  had  survived  the  depraving  process  which  leads 
to  the  malefactor's  cell, 


THE    ECONOMIC    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  171 

i 

by  England's  wretched  law  of  pauperism  ;  and  this  violation  of 
the  natural  order  has  been  followed  up,  in  consequence,  by  a 
tenfold  increase  both  of  poverty  and  crime. 

14.   It  is  interesting  to  pursue  the  outgoings  of  such  a  sys- 
tem ;  and  to  ascertain  whether  nature  hath  vindicated  her  wis- 
dom, by  the  evil  consequences  of  a  departure  from  her  guidance 
on  the  part  of  man — for  if  so,  it  will  supply  another  proof,  or 
furnish  us  with  another   sight  of  the  exquisite  adaptation  which 
she  hath  established  between  the  moral  and  the  physical,  or  be- 
tween the  two  worlds  of  mind  and  matter.     Certain,  then,  of  the 
parishes  of  England  have  afibrded  a  very  near  exemplification 
of  the  ultimate  state  to  which  one  and  all  of  them  are  tending — 
a  state  which  is  consummated,  when  the  poor  rates  form  so 
large  a  deduction  from  the  rents  of  the  land,  that  it  shall  at 
length  cease  to  be  an  object  to  keep  them  in  cultivation.*     It 
is  thus  that  some  tracts  of  country  are  on  the  eve  of  being  ac- 
tually vacated  by  their  proprietors  ;  and  as  their  place  of  super- 
intendance  cannot  be  vacated  by  others,  who  have  no  right  of 
superintendance — the  result  might  be,  that  whole  estates  shall 
be  as  effectually  lost  to  the  wealth  and  resources  of  the  country, 
as  if  buried  by  an  earthquake  under  water,  or,  as  if  some  blight 
of  nature  had  gone  over  them  and  bereft  them  of  their  powers 
of  vegetation.     Now  we  know  not,  if  the  whole  history  of  the 
world  furnishes  a  more  striking  demonstration  than  this,  of  the 
mischief  that  may  be  done,  by  attempting  to  carry  into  practice 
a  theoretical  speculation,  which,  under  the  guise  and  even  with 
the  real  purpose  of  benevolence,  has  for  its  plausible  object,  to 
equalize   among  the   children   of  one   common   humanity,  the 
blessings  and  the  fruits  of  one  common  inheritance-     The  truth 
is  that  we  have  not  been  conducted  to  the  present  state  of  our 
rights  and  arrangements  respecting  property,  by  any  artificial 
process  of  legislation  at  all.     The  state  of  property  in  which  we 
find  ourselves  actually  landed,  is  the  result  of  a  natural  process, 
under  which,  all  that  a  man  earns  by  his  industry  is  acknow- 

+  The  following  is  an  extract  from  the  report  of  a  select  committee  on  tlie  poor 
law  printed  in  1817.  "  The  consequences  which  are  likely  to  result  from  this  state 
of  things,  are  clearly  set  forth  in  the  petition  from  the  parish  of  Wombridge  in  Salop, 
which  is  fast  approaching  to  this  state.  The  petitioners  state  'that  the  annual  value 
of  lands,  mines  and  houses  in  this  parish,  is  not  sufficient  to  maintain  the  numerous 
and  increasing  poor,  even  if  the  same  were  set  free  of  rent;  and  that  these  circum- 
stances will  inevitably  compel  the  occupiers  of  lands  and  mines  to  relinquish  them; 
and  the  poor  will  be  without  relief,  or  any  known  mode  of  obtaining  it,  unless  some 
assistance  be  speedily  afforded  to  them.'  And  your  committee  apprehend,  from  the 
petition  before  them,  that  this  is  one  of  many  parishes  that  are  fast  approaching  to  a 
state  of  dereliction." 

The  inquiries  of  the  present  Poor  law  Commission  have  led  to  a  still  more  aggra- 
vated and  confirmed  view  of  the  evils  of  the  system. 


172  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

ledged  to  be  his  own — or,  when  the  original  mode  of  acquisition 
is  lost  sight  of,  all  that  a  man  retains  by  long  and  undisturbed 
possession  is  felt  and  acknowledged  to  be  his  ov.  n  also.  Legis- 
lation ought  to  do  no  more  than  barely  recognize  these  princi- 
ples, and  defend  its  subjects  against  the  violation  of  them.  And 
when  it  attempts  more  than  this — when  it  offers  to  tamper  with 
the  great  arrangements  of  nature,  by  placing  the  rights  and  the 
securities  of  property  on  a  footing  different  from  that  of  nature — 
when,  as  in  the  case  of  the  English  poor-laws,  it  does  so,  under 
the  pretence  and  doubtless  too  with  the  honest  design  of  esta- 
blishing between  the  rich  and  the  poor  a  nearer  equality  of  en- 
joyment ;  we  know  not  in  what  way  violated  nature  could  have 
inflicted  on  the  enterprize  a  more  signal  and  instructive  chas- 
tisem.ent,  than  when  the  w  hole  territory  of  this  pbiisible  but  pre- 
sumptuous experiment  is  made  to  droop  and  to  wither  under  it 
as  if  struck  by  a  judgment  from  heaven — till  at  length  that  earth 
out  of  which  the  rich  draw  all  their  wealth  and  the  poor  all  their 
subsistence,  refuses  to  nourish  the  children  who  have  abandoned 
her ;  and  both  parties  are  involved  in  the  wreck  of  one  common 
and  overwhelming  visitation. 

15.  But  we  read  the  same  lesson  in  all  the  laws  and  move- 
ments of  political  economy.  The  superior  wisdom  of  nature  is 
demonstrated  in  the  mischief  which  is  done  by  any  aberration 
therefrom — when  her  processes  are  disturbed  or  mtermeddled 
with  by  the  wisdom  of  man.  The  philosophy  of  free  trade  is 
grounded  on  the  principle,  that  society  is  most  enriched  or  best 
served,  w^hen  commerce  is  left  to  its  own  spontaneous  evolu- 
tions ;  and  is  neither  fostered  by  the  artificial  encouragements, 
nor  fettered  by  the  artificial  restraints  of  human  policy.  The 
greatest  economic  good  is  rendered  to  the  community,  by  each 
man  being  left  to  consult  and  to  labour  for  his  own  particular 
good — or,  in  other  words,  a  more  prosperous  result  is  obtained 
by  the  spontaneous  play  and  busy  competition  of  many  thousand 
wills,  each  bent  on  the  prosecution  of  its  own  selfishness,  than 
by  the  anxious  superintendance  of  a  government,  vainly  attempt- 
ing to  medicate  the  fancied  imperfections  of  nature,  or  to  im- 
prove on  the  arrangements  of  her  previous  and  better  mechan- 
ism. It  is  when  each  man  is  left  to  seek,  with  concentrated  and 
exclusive  aim,  his  own  individual  benefit — it  is  then,  that  mar- 
kets are  best  supplied ;  that  commodities  are  furnished  for 
general  use,  of  best  quality,  and  in  greatest  cheapness  and  abun- 
dance ;  that  the  comforts  of  life  are  most  multiphed ;  and  the 
most  free  and  rapid  augmentation  takes  place  in  the  riches  and 
resources  of  the  commonwealth.  Such  a  result,  which  at  the 
same  time  not  a  single  agent  in  this  vast  and  compUcated  system 


THE    ECONOMIC    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  173 

of  trade  contemplates  or  cares  for,  each  caring  only  for  himself 
— strongly  bespeaks  a  higher  agent,  by  whose  transcendental  wis- 
dom it  is,  that  all  is  made  to  conspire  so  harmoniously  and  to 
terminate  so  beneficially.  We  are  apt  to  recognize  no  higher 
wisdom  than  that  of  man,  in  those  mighty  concerts  of  human 
agency — a  battle,  or  a  revolution,  or  the  accomplishment  of 
some  prosperous  and  pacific  scheme  of  universal  education ; 
where  each  who  shares  in  the  undertaking  is  aware  of  its  object, 
or  acts  in  obedience  to  some  master-mind  who  may  have  de- 
vised and  who  actuates  the  whole.  But  it  is  widely  difierent, 
when,  as  in  political  economy,  some  great  and  beneficent  end 
both  unlooked  and  unlaboured  for,  is  the  result,  not  of  any  con- 
cert or  general  purpose  among  the  thousands  who  are  engaged 
in  it — but  is  the  compound  effect,  nevertheless,  of  each  looking 
severally,  and  in  the  strenuous  pursuit  of  individual  advantage, 
to  some  distinct  object  of  his  own.  When  we  behold  the  work- 
ing of  a  complex  inanimate  machine,  and  the  usefulness  of  its 
products — we  infer,  from  the  unconsciousness  of  all  its  parts, 
that  there  must  have  been  a  planning  and  a  presiding  wisdom  in 
the  construction  of  it.  The  conclusion  is  not  the  less  obvious, 
Me  think  it  emphatically  more  so,  when,  instead  of  this,  we  be»- 
hold  in  one  of  the  animate  machines  of  human  society,  the  busy 
world  of  trade,  a  beneficent  result,  an  optimism  of  public  and 
economical  advantage,  wrought  out  by  the  free  movements  of  a 
vast  multitude  of  men,  not  one  of  whom  had  the  advantage  of 
the  public  in  all  his  thoughts.  When  good  is  effected  by  a 
combination  of  unconscious  agents  incaj)able  of  all  aim,  we 
ascribe  the  combination  to  an  intellect  that  devised  and  gave  it 
birth.  When  good  is  effected  by  a  combination  of  conscious 
agents  capable  of  aim,  but  that  an  aim  wholly  difTerent  with  each 
from  the  compound  and  general  result  of  their  united  operations 
— this  bespeaks  a  higher  will  and  a  higher  wisdom  than  any  by 
which  the  individuals,  taken  separately,  are  actuated.  When 
we  look  at  each  striving  to  better  his  own  condition,  we  see 
nothing  in  this  but  the  selfishness  of  man.  When  we  look  at 
the  effect  of  this  universal  principle,  in  cheapening  and  multiply- 
ing to  the  uttermost  all  the  articles  of  human  enjoyment,  and 
establisliing  a  thousand  reciprocities  of  mutual  interest  in  the 
world — we  see  in  this  the  benevolence  and  comprehensive  wis- 
dom of  God. 

16.  The  whole  science  of  Political  Economy  is  full  of  those 
exquisite  adaptations  to  the  wants  and  the  comforts  of  human 
life,  which  bespeak  the  skill  of  a  master-hand,  in  the  adjustment 
of  its  laws,  and  the  working  of  its  profoundly  constructed  me- 
chanism. We  shall  instance,  first,  that  speciality  in  the  law  of 
15* 


174  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

prices,  by  which  they  oscillate  more  largely  with  the  varieties  in 
the  supply  of  the  necessaries,  than  they  do  in  the  mere  comforts 
or  luxuries  of  human  life.     The  deficiency  of  one  tenth  in  the 
imports  of  sugar,  would  not  so  raise  the  price  of  that  article,  as 
a  similar  deficiency  in  the  supply  of  corn,  which  might  rise  even 
a  third  in  price,  by  the  diminution  of  a  tenth  from  the  usual  quan- 
tity brought  to  market.     It  is  not  with  the  reason,  but  with  the 
beneficial  efiect  of  this  phenomenon,  that  we  at  present  have  to 
do — not  with  its  efficient,  but  with  its  final  cause ;  or  the  great 
and  obvious  utilities  to  which  it  is  subservient.     Connected  with 
this  law  of  wider  variation  in  the  price  than  in  the  supply  of  first 
necessaries,  is  the  reason  why  a  population  survive  so  well  those 
years  of  famine,  when  the  prices  perhaps  are  tripled.     This  does 
not  argue  that  they  must  be  therefore  three  times  worse  fed  than 
usual.      The  food  of  the  country  may  only,  for  aught  we  know, 
have  been  lessened  by  a  fourth  part  of  its  usual  supply — or,  in 
other  words,  the  families  may  at  an  average  be  served  Avith  three- 
fourths  of  their  usual  subsistence,  at  the  very  time  that  the  cost 
of  it  is  three  times  greater  than  usual.     And  to  make  out  this 
large  payment,  they  have  to  retrench  for  the  year  in  other  arti- 
cles— altogether,  it  is  likely,  to  give  up  the  use  of  comforts  ;  and 
to  limit  themselves  more  largely  in  the  second,  than  they  can 
possibly  do  in  the  first  necessaries  of  life — to  forego  perhaps 
many  of  the   little   seasonings,  wherewith   they  wont  to   impart 
u   relish   to   their  coarse   and  humble   fare — to  husband   more 
strictly  their  fuel ;  and  be  satisfi.ed  for  a  time  with  vestments 
more  threadbare,  and  even  more  tattered,  than  what  in  better 
times  they  would  choose  to  appear  in.     It  is  thus  that-  even 
although  the  fi.rst  necessaries  should  be  tripled  in  price  for  a 
season,  and   although   the  pecuniary  income   of  the   labouring 
classes  should  not  at  all  be  increased — yet  they  are  found  to 
weather  the  hardships  of  such  a  visitation.     The  food  is  still 
served  out  to  them  at  a  much  larger  proportion  than  the  cost  of 
it  would  in  the  first  instance  appear  to  indicate.     And  in  the 
second  instance  they  are  enabled  to  purchase  at  this  cost — 
because,  and  more  especially  if  .they  be  a  well-habited  and  well- 
conditioned  peasantry,  with  a  pretty  high  standard  of  enjoyment 
in  ordinary  years,  they  have  more  that  they  can  save  and  retrench 
upon  in  a  year  of  severe  scarcity.     They  can  disengage  much 
of  that  revenue  wiiich  before  went  to  the  purchase  of  dress,  and 
of  various  luxuries  that  might  for  a  season  be  dispensed  with  ; 
and  so  have  the  more  to  expend  on  the  materials  of  subsistence. 
It  is  this  which  explains  how  roughly  a  population  can  bear  to  be 
handled,  both  by  adverse  seasons  and  by  the  vicissitudes  of 
trade ;  and  how  after  all,  there  is  a  stability  about  a  people's 


THE    ECONOMIC    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  175 

means,  which  will  keep  its  oiound  against  many  checks,  and 
amidst  many  fluctuations.  It  is  a  mystery  and  a  marvel  to 
many  an  observer,  how  the  seemingly  frail  and  precarious  inte- 
rest of  the  labouring  classes  should  after  all,  have  the  stamina 
of  such  endurance  as  to  weather  the  most  fearful  reverses  l)oth 
of  commerce  and  of  the  seasons  ;  and  that,-  somehow  or  other, 
we  find  after  an  interval  of  glooiny  suffering  and  still  gloomier 
fears,  that  the  families  do  emerge  again  into  the  same  state  of 
sufficiency  as  before.  We  know  not  a  fitter  study  for  the  phi- 
lanthropist than  the  working  of  that  mechanism,  by  which  a  pro- 
cess so  gratifying  is  caused,  or  in  which  he  will  find  greater 
reason  to  admire  the  exquisite  skill  of  those  various  adaptations 
that  must  be  referred  to  the  providence  of  Him  who  framed 
society,  and  suited  so  wisely  to  each  other  the  elements  of 
which  it  is  composed. 

17.  There  is  nought  which  appears  more  variable  than  the 
operation  of  those  elements  by  which  the  annual  supply  of  the 
national  subsistence  is  regulated.  How  imlike  in  character  is 
one  season  to  another ;  and  between  the  extremes  of  dryness 
and  moisture,  how  exceedingly  different  may  be  the  amount  of 
that  produce  on  which  the  sustenance  of  man  essentially  de- 
pends. Even  after  that  the  promise  of  abundance  is  well  nigh 
realized,  the  hurricane  of  a  single  day,  passing  over  the  yet  un- 
cut but  rijJened  corn  ;  or  the  rain  of  a  fev/  weeks,  to  drench  and 
macerate  the  sheaves  that  lie  piled  together  on  the  harvest-field, 
were  enough  to  destroy  the  food  of  milhons.  We  are  aware  of 
a  compensa.tiori,  in  the  varieties  of  soil  and  exposure,  so  that  the 
weather  which  is  adverse  to  one  part  of  the  country  might  be 
favourable  to  another  :  besides  that  the  mischief  of  a  desolating 
tempest  in  autumn  must  only  be  partial,  from  the  harvest  of  the 
plains  and  uplands  falling  upon  difierent  months.  Still,  with  all 
these  balancing  causes,  the  produce  of  different  years  is  very 
far  from  being  equalized  ;  and  its  fluctuations  would  come 
charged  with  still  more  of  distress  and  destitution  to  families — 
were  there  not  a  counterpoise  to  the  laws  of  nature,  in  what 
may  be  termed  the  laws  of  political  economy. 

IS.  The  price  of  human  food  does  not  immediately  depend 
on  the  quantity  of  it  that  is  produced,  but  on  the  quantity  of  it 
that  is  brought  to  market ;  and  it  is  well  that,  in  every  year  of 
scarcity,  there  should  be  instant  causes  put  into  operation  for  in- 
creasing the  latter  quantity  to  the  uttermost — so  as  to  repair  as 
much  as  possible  the  deficiencies  of  the  former.  It  is  well  that 
even  a  small  short-coming  in  the  crop  should  be  so  surely  fol- 
lowed by  a  great  advance  of  prices  ;  for  this  has  instantly  the 
effect  of  putting  the  families  of  the  land  upon  that  shortness  of 


176  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

allowance,  which  might  cause  the  supply,  limited  as  it  is,  to  serve 
throughout  the  year.  But,  besides  the  wholesome  restraint 
which  is  thus  imposed  on  the  general  consumption  of  families, 
there  is  encouragement  given  by  this  dearness  to  abridge  the 
consumption  upon  farms,  and  by  certain  shifts  in  their  manage- 
ment to  make  out  the  gi-eatest  possible  surplus,  for  the  object 
of  sale  and  supply  to  the  population  at  large.  With  a  high 
price,  the  farmer  feels  it  a  more  urgent  interest,  to  carry  as  much 
of  his  produce  to  market  as  he  can ;  and  for  this  purpose,  he 
will  retrench  to  the  uttermost  at  home.  And  he  has  much  in 
his  power.  More  particularly,  he  can  and  does  retrench  consi- 
derably upon  the  feed  of  his  cattle,  and  in  as  far  as  this  wont  to 
consist  of  potatoes  or  grain,  there  must  an  important  addition 
be  gained  in  this  way  to  the  supplies  of  the  market.  One  must 
often  have  been  struck  with  the  comparative  cheapness  of  ani- 
mal food  in  a  year  of  scarcity.  This  is  because  of  the  greater 
slaughter  of  cattle  which  takes  place  in  such  a  year,  to  save  the 
heavy  expense  of  maintaining  them  ;  and  which,  besides  afford- 
ing a  direct  accession  to  the  sustenance  of  man,  lightens  still 
more  the  farm  consumption,  and  disengages  for  sale  a  still 
greater  amount  of  the  necessaries  of  life.  We  do  not  say  but 
that  the  farm  suffers  a  derangement  by  this  change  of  regimen, 
from  which  it  might  take  years  to  recover  fully.  But  the  evil 
.  becomes  more  tolerable  by  being  spread.  The  horrors  of  ex- 
treme scarcity  are  prevented.  The  extremity  is  weathered  at 
its  furthest  point.  The  country  emerges  from  the  visitation,  and 
without,  in  all  probability,  the  starvation  of  one  individual ;  and 
all  because,  from  the  operation  of  the  causes  that  we  have  now 
explained,  the  supply  of  the  market  is  made  to  oscillate  within 
smaller  limits  than  the  crop — insomuch  that  though  the  latter 
should  be  deficient  by  one-third  of  the  whole,  the  former  might 
not  be  deficient  by  one-fifth  or  one-sixth  of  what  is  brought  to 
market  annually. 

19.  This  effect  is  greatly  increased  by  the  suspending  of  dis- 
tillation in  years  of  scarcity.  And  after  all,  should  the  supplies 
be  yet  very  short,  and  the  prices  therefore  far  more  than  propor- 
tionally high,  this  will  naturally  and  of  itself,  bring  on  the  impor- 
tation of  grain  from  forefgn  parts.  If  such  be  the  variety  of 
weather  and  soil,  even  within  the  limits  of  a  country,  as  in  some 
measure  to  balance  the  scarcity  which  is  experienced  in  one  set 
of  farms,  by  the  comparative  abundance  of  another  set — this 
will  apply  with  much  greater  force  to  a  whole  continent,  or  to 
the  world  at  large.  If  a  small  deficiency  in  the  home  supply  of 
grain  induce  a  higher  price  than  with  other  articles  of  commerce, 
this  is  just  a  provision  for  a  securer  and  readier  filling  up  of  the 


THE    ECONOMIC    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  177 

deficiency  by  a  movement  from  abroad — a  thing  of"  far  greater 
importance  with  the  necessaries  than  with  the  mere  comforts  or 
luxuries  of  hfe.     That  law  of  wider  and  more  tremulous  oscil- 
lation in  the  price  of  corn,  which  we  have  attempted  to  expound, 
is  in  itself  a  security  for  a  more  equal  distribution  of  it  over  the 
globe  by  man,  in  those  seasons  when  nature  has  been  partial — 
so  as  to  diffuse  the  more  certainly  and  the  more  speedily  through 
the  earth  that  which  has  been  dropped  upon  it  unequally  from 
Heaven.     It  is  well  that  greater  efficacy  should  thus  be  given 
to  that  corrective  force,  by  which  the  yearly  supplies  of  food  are 
spread  over  the  world  with  greater  uniformity  than  they  at  first 
descend  upon  it ;   and,  jiowever  much  it  may  be  thought  to  ag- 
gravate a  people's  hardships,  that  a  slight  failure  in  their  home 
supply  should  create  such  a  rise  in  the  cost  of  necessaries — yet 
certainly  it  makes  the  impulse  all  the  more  powerful,  by  which 
corn  flows  in  from  lands  of  plenty  to  a  land  of  famine.      But 
what  we  have  long  esteemed  the   most  beautiful  part  of  this 
operation,  is  the   instant  advantage,  which  a  large  importation 
from  abroad  gives  to  our  export  manufactures  at  home.     There 
is  a  limit  in  the  rate  of  exchange  to  the  exportation  of  articles 
from  any  country  ;  but  up  to  this  limit,  there  is  a  class  of  la- 
bourers employed  in  the  preparation  of  these  articles.      Now 
the  effect  of  an  augmented  importation  upon  the  exchange  is 
such  as  to  enlarge  this  limit — so  that  our  export  traders  can  then 
sell  with  a  larger  profit,  and  carry  out  a  greater  amount  of  goods 
than  before,  and  thus  enlist  a  more  numerous  population  in  the 
service  of  preparing  them.     An  increased  importation  always 
gives  an  impulse  to  exportation,  so   as  to  make  employment 
spring  up  in  one  quarter,  at  the  very  time  that  it  disappears  in 
another.     Or,  rather,  at  the  very  time  when  the  demand  for  a 
particular  commodity   is   slackened  at  home,   it  is  stimulated 
abroad.     We  have  already  adverted  to  the  way  in  which  fami- 
lies shift  their  expenditure  in  a  year  of  scarcity,  directing  a  far 
greater  proportion  of  it  than  usual  to  the  first  necessaries  of  life, 
and  withdrawing  it  proportionally  from  the  comforts,  and  even 
second  necessaries  of  life.     Cloth  may  be  regarded  as  one  of 
the  second  necessaries  ;  and  it  were  woful  indeed,  i^  on  the  pre- 
cise year  when  food  was  dearest,  the  numerous  workmen  en- 
gaged in  this  branch  of  industry  should  find  that  employment 
was  scarcest.      But  in  very  proportion  as  they  are  eibandoned 
by  customers  at  home,  do  they  find  a  compensation  in  the  more 
quickened  demand  of  customers  from  abroad.      It  is  in  these 
various  ways  that  a  country  is  found  to  survive  so  well  its  hardest 
and  heaviest  visitations ;  and  even  under  a  triple  price  for  the 
first  articles  of  subsistence,  it  has  been  found  to  emerge  into 


178  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

prosperity  again,  without  an    authentic  instance  of  starvation 
throughout  all  its  families.* 

20.  When  any  given  object  is  anxiously  cared  for  by  a  legis- 
lature, and  all  its  wisdom  is  put  forth  in  devising  measures  for 
securing  or  extending  it — it  forms  a  pleasing  discovery  to  find, 
that  what  may  have  hitherto  been  the  laborious  aim  and  effort  of 
human  policy,  has  already  been  provided  for,  v/ith  all  perfection 
and  entireness  in  the  spontaneous  workings  of  human  nature  ; 
and  that  therefore,  in  this  instance,  the  Avisdom  of  the  state  has 
been  anticipated  by  a  higher  wisdom — or  the  wisdom  which  pre- 
sides over  the  ordinations  of  a  human  government,  has  been  anti- 
cipated by  the  wisdom  which  ordained  the  laws  of  the  human  con- 
stitution. Of  this  there  are  manifold  examples  in  political  economy 
— as  in  the  object  of  population,  for  the  keeping  up  and  increase 
of  which,  there  was  at  one  time  a  misplaced  anxiety  on  the  part 
of  rulers ;  and  the  object  of  capital  for  the  preservation  and  growth 
of  which  there  is  a  lifee  misplaced  anxiety,  and  for  the  decay  and 
disappearance  of  which  there  is  an  equally  misplaced  alarm.  Both, 
in  fact,  are  what  may  be  termed  self-regulating  interests — or,  in 
other  words,  mterests  which  result  with  so  much  certainty  from 
the  checks  and  the  principles  that  nature  hath  already  instituted,  as 
to  supersede  all  public  or  patriotic  regulation  in  regard  to  either  of 
them.  This  has  now  been  long  understood  on  the  subject  of  popu- 
lation; but  it  holds  equally  true  on  the  subject  of  capital.  There 
is,  on  the  one  hand,  throughout  society  enough  of  the  appetite  for 
enjoyment,  to  secure  us  against  its  needless  excess  ;  and,  on  the 
other,  enough  of  the  appetite  for  g-ain,  to  secure  us  against  its 
hurtful  deficiency.  And,  by  a  law  of  oscillation  as  beautiful 
as  that  which  obtains  in  the  planetary  system,  and  by  which 
amid  all  disturbances  and  errors,  it  is  upheld  in  its  mean 
state  indestructible  and  inviolate — does  capital,  in  like  manner, 
constantly  tend  to  a  condition  of  optimism,  and  is  never  far  from 
it,  amid  all  the  variations,  whether  of  defect,  or  redundancy,  to 
which  it  is  exposed.  When  in  defect,  by  the  operation  of  high 
prices,  it  almost  instantly  recovers  itself^ — when  in  excess,  it, 
by  the  operation  of  low  profits,  or  rather  of  losing  speculations, 
almost  instantly  collapses  into  a  right  mediocrity.  In  the  first 
case,  the  inducement  is  to  trade  rather  than  to  spend  ;  and  there 
is  a  speedy  accumulation  of  capital.  In  the  second  case,  the  in- 
ducement is  to  spend  rather  than  to  trade  ;  and  there  is  a  speedy 
reduction  of  capital.     It  is  thus  that  capital   ever  suits  itself, 

*  It  is  right  to  mention  Uiat  the  four  preceding  paragraphs  are  taken  in  substance, 
and  very  much  in  language,  from  a  former  publication — as  presenting  a  notable  adap- 
tation of  external  to  human  nature  which  offered  itself,  in  the  course  of  other  investi- 
gations, and  at  a  time  'ivhen  we  were  not  in  quest  of  it. 


THE    ECONOMIC    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  179 

in  the  way  that  is  best  possible,  to  the  circumstances  of  the 
country — so  as  to  leave  uncalled  for,  any  economic  regula- 
tion by  the  wisdom  of  man  ;  and  that  precisely  because  of  a 
previous  moral  and  mental  regulation  by  the  wisdom  of  God. 

21.   But  if  any  thing  can  demonstrate  the  hand  of  a  righteous 
Deity  in  the  nature  and  workings  of  what  may  well  be  termed  a 
mechanism  the  very  peculiar  mechanism  of  trade  ;  it   is    the 
healthful  impulse  given  to  all  its  movements,  wherever  there  is 
a  reigning  principle  of  sobriety  and  virtue  in  the  land — so  as  to 
ensure  an  inseparable  connexion  between  the  moral  worth  and 
the  economic  comfort  of  a  people.    Of  this  we  should  meet  with 
innumerable  verifications  in  political  economy — did  we  make  a 
study  of  the  science,  with  the  express  design  of  fixing  and  ascer- 
taining them.   There  is  one  very  beautiful  instance  in  the  effect, 
which  the  frugality  and  foresight  of  workmen  would  have,  to 
control  and  equalize  the  fluctuations  of  commerce — acting  with 
the  power  of  a  fl}fin  mechanics  ;  and  so  as  to  save,  or  at  least 
indefinitely  to  shorten,  those  dreary  intervals  of  suspended  work 
or  miserable  wages,  which  nov/  occur  so  often,  and  with  almost 
periodic  regularity  in  the  trading  world.   What  constitutes  a  sore 
aggravation  to  the  wretchedness  of  such  a  season,  is  the  neces- 
sity of  overworking — so  as,  if  possible,  to  compensate  by  the 
amount  of  labour  for  the  deficiency  of  its  remuneration  ;  and  yet 
the  inverse  effect  of  this  in   augmenting  and  perpetuating  that 
glut,  or  overproduction,  which  is  the  real  origin  of  this  whole 
calamity.   It  would  not  happen  in  the  hands  of  a  people  elevated 
and   exempted  above  the   urgencies  of  immediate  want ;    and 
nothing  will  so  elevate  and  exempt  them,  but  their  own  accumu- 
lated  wealth — the    produce  of  a  resolute   economy  and   good 
management  in  prosperous  times.   Would  they  only  save  during 
high  wages,  what  they  might  spend  during  low  wages — so  as 
when  the  depression  comes,  to  slacken,  instead  of  adding  to 
their  work,  or  even  cease  from  it  altogether — could  they  only 
afford  to  live  through  the  months  of  such  a  visitation,  on  their 
well  husbanded  means,  the  commodities  of  the  overladen  market 
would  soon  clear  away ;  v»'hen,  with  the  retin-n  of  a  brisk  de- 
mand on  empty  warehouses,  a  few  weeks  instead  of  months 
would  restore  them  to  importance  and  prosperity  in  the  common- 
wealth.    This  is  but  a  single  specimen  from  many  others  of 
that  enlargement  which  awaits  the  labouring  classes,  after  that 
by  their  own  intelligence  and  virtue,  they  have  won  their  way  to 
it.     With  but  wisdom  and  goodness  among  the  common  people, 
the  whole  of  this  economic  machinery  would  work  most  benefi- 
cently for  them — a  moral  ordination,  containing  in  it  most  di- 
rect evidence   for  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  that  Being  by 


180  AFFECTIONS    WHICH    CONDUCE    TO 

whose  hands  it  is  that  the  machinery  has  been  framed  and  con 
stituted ;  and  who,  the  Preserver  and  Governor,  as  well  as  the 
Creator  of  His  works,  sits  with  presiding  authority  over  all  its 
evolutions. 

22.  But  this  is  only  one  specimen  out  of  the  many — the  par- 
ticulai'  instance  of  a  quality  that  is  universal,  and  which  may  be 
detected  in  almost  all  the  phenomena  and  principles  of  the  sci- 
ence ;  for  throughout,  political  economy  is  but  one  grand  exem- 
plification of  the  aUiance,  which  a  God  of  righteousness  hath 
established,  between  prudence  and  moral  principle  on  the  one 
hand,  and  physical  comfort  on  the  other.  However  obnoxious 
the  modem  doctrine  of  population,  as  expounded  by  Mr.  Malthus, 
may  have  been,  and  still  is,  to  weak  and  limited  sentimentalists, 
it  is  the  truth  which  of  all  others  sheds  the  greatest  brightness 
over  the  earthly  prospects  of  humanity — and  this  in  spite  of  the 
hideous,  the  yet  sustained  outcry  which  has  risen  against  it. 
This  is  a  pure  case  of  adaptation,  between  the  external  nature  of 
the  world  in  which  we  live,  and  the  moral  nature  of  man,  its  chief 
occupier.  There  is  a  demonstrable  inadequacy  in  all  the  mate- 
rial resources  which  the  globe  can  furnish,  for  the  increasing 
wants  of  a  recklessly  increasing  species.  But  over  and  against 
this,  man  is  gifted  with  a  moral  and  a  mental  power  by  which  the 
inadequacy  might  be  fully  countervailed ;  and  the  species,  in 
virtue  of  their  restrained  and  regulated  numbers,  be  upholden  on 
the  face  of  our  world,  in  circumstances  of  large  and  staple  suf- 
ficiency, even  to  the  most  distant  ages.  The  first  origin  of  this 
blissful  consummation  is  in  the  virtue  of  the  people  ;  but  carried 
into  sure  and  lasting  effect  by  the  laws  of  political  economy, 
through  tlie  indissoluble  connexion  which  obtains  between  the 
wages  and  the  supply  of  labour — so  that  in  every  given  state  of 
commerce  and  civilization,  the  amount  of  the  produce  of  industry 
and  of  the  produce  of  the  soil,  which  shall  fall  to  the  share  of  the 
work-men,  is  virtually  at  the  determination  of  the  work-men 
themselves,  who,  by  dint  of  resolute  prudence  and  resolute  prin- 
ciple together,  may  rise^to  an  indefinitely  higher  status  than  they 
now  occupy,  of  comfort  and  independence  in  the  commonwealth. 
This  opens  up  a  cheering  prospect  to  the  lovers  of  our  race  ;  and 
not  the  less  so,  that  it  is  seen  through  the  medium  of  popular  in- 
telligence and  virtue — the  only  medium  through  which  it  can  ever 
be  realized.  And  it  sheds  a  revelation,  not  only  on  the  hopeful 
destinies  of  man,  but  on  the  character  of  God — in  having  insti- 
tuted this  palpable  alliance  between  the  moral  and  the  physical ; 
and  so  assorted  the  economy  of  outward  nature  to  the  economy 
of  human  principles  and  passions.  The  lights  of  modern  science 
have  made  us  apprehend  more  clearly,  by  what  steps  the  con- 


THE    ECONOMIC    WELL-BEING    OF    SOCIETY.  181 

dition  and  the  character  of  the  common  people  rise  and  fall  with 
each  other — insomuch,  that,  while  on  the  one  hand  their  general 
destitution  is  the  inevitable  result  of  their  general  worthlessness, 
they,  on  the  other,  by  dint  of  wisdom  and  moral  strength,  can 
augment  indefinitely,  not  the  produce  of  the  earth,  nor  the  pro- 
duce of  human  industry,  but  that  proportion  of  both  which  falls 
to  their  own  share.  Their  economic  is  sure  to  follow  by  suc- 
cessive advances  in  the  career  of  their  moral  elevation  ;  nor  do 
we  hold  it  impossible,  or  even  unlikely — that  gaining,  every  ge- 
neration, on  the  distance  which  now  separates  them  from  the 
upper  classes  of  society,  they  shall,  in  respect  both  of  decent 
sufficiency  and  dignified  leisure,  make  perpetual  approximations 
to  the  fellowships  and  the  enjoyments  of  cultivated  life. 


16 


182  RELATION    OF    THE    SPECIAL    AFFECTIONS 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

On  the  Relation  in  which  the  special  Affections  of  our  JYature 
stand  to  Virtue ;  and  on  the  Demonstration  given  forth  by  ity 
both  to  the  Character  of  JMan  and  the  Character  of  God. 

1.   There  are  certain  broad  and  decisive  indications  of  moral 
design,  and  so  of  a  moral  designer,  in  the  constitution  of  our 
world,  which  instead  of  expounding  at  great  length,  we  have  only 
stated   briefly  or  incidentally — because,    however    effective    as 
proofs,  they  possess  a  character  of  such  extreme  obviousness, 
as  to  require  no  anxious  or  formal  explanation  ;  but,  on  the  in- 
stant of  being  presented  to  their  notice,  are  read  and  recognized 
by  all  men.     One  patent  example  of  this  in  the  constitution  of 
man,  is  the  force  and  prevalence  of  compassion — an  endowment 
which  could  not  have  proceeded  from  a  malignant  being  ;   but 
which  evinces  the  Author  of  our  nature  to  be  himself  compas- 
sionate and  generous.     Another  example  may  be  given   alike 
patent  and  recognizable,  if  not  of  a  virtuous  principle  in  the  hu- 
man constitution,  at  least  of  such  an  adaptation  of  the  external 
world  to  that  constitution — that,  with  the  virtuous  practice  which 
that  principle  would  both  originate  and  sustain,  the  outward  and 
general  prosperity  of  man  is  indispensably  connected.    We  mean 
the  manifest  and  indispensable  subserviency  of  a  general  truth 
in  the  world,  to  the  general  well-being  of  society.     It  is  difficult 
to  imagine,  that  a  God  of  infinite  power,  and  consummate  skill 
of  workmanship,  but  withal  a  lover  of  falsehood,  would  have  de- 
vised such  a  world ;  or  rather,  that  he  would  not,  in  patronage 
to  those  of  his  own  likeness,  have  ordered  the  whole  of  its  system 
differently — so  reversing  its  present  laws  and  sequences,  as  that, 
instead  of  honour  and  integrity,  duplicity  disingenuousness  and 
fraud,  should  have  been  the  usual  stepping-stones  to  the  posses- 
sion both  of  this  world's  esteem  and  of  this  world's  enjoyments. 
How  palpably  opposite  this  is  to  the  actual  economy  of  things, 
the  whole  experience  of  life  abundantly  testifies — making  it  evi- 
dent, of  individual  examples,  that  the  connexion  between  honesty 
and   success  in  the  world  is  the  rule ;  the  connexion  between 
dishonesty  and  success  is  the  exception.     But  perhaps,  instead 
of  attempting  the  induction  of  particular  cases,  we  should  ob- 
serve a  still  more  distinct  avowal  of  the  character  of  God,  of  his 
favour  for  truth,  and  of  the  discountenance  which  he  has  laid  upon 
falsehood,  by  tracing,  which  could  be  easily  done  in  imagination, 


OF    OUR    NATURE    TO    VIRTUE.  183 

the  effect  it  would  have  in  society,  if,  all  things  else  remaining 
unaltered,  there  should  this  single  difference  be  introduced,  of  a 
predominant  falsehood,  instead  of  a  predominant  truth  in  the 
world.  The  consequences  of  a  universal  distrust,  in  the  almost 
universal  stoppage  that  would  ensue  of  the  useful  interchanges 
of  life,  are  too  obvious  to  be  enumerated.  The  world  of  trade 
would  henceforth  break  up  into  a  state  of  anarchy,  or  rather  be 
paralyzed  into  a  state  of  cessation  and  stillness.  The  mutual 
confidence  between  man  and  man,  if  not  the  mainspring  of  com- 
merce, is  at  least  the  oil,  without  which  its  movements  were  im- 
practicable. And  were  truth  to  disappear,  and  all  dependence  on 
human  testimony  to  be  destroyed,  this  is  not  the  only  interest 
which  would  be  ruined  by  it.  It  would  vitiate,  and  that  incu- 
rably, every  social  and  every  domestic  relationship  ;  and  all  the 
charities  as  well  as  all  the  comforts  of  life  would  take  their  depart- 
ure from  the  world. 

2.  Seeing  then  that  the  observation  of  honesty  and  truth  is  of 
such  vital  importance  to  society,  that  without  it  society  would 
cease  to  keep  together — it  might  be  well  to  ascertain,  by  what 
special  provision  it  is  in  the  constitution  of  man,  that  the  practice 
of  these  virtues  is  upheld  in  the  world.  Did  it  proceed  in  every 
instance,  from  the  natural  power  and  love  of  integrity  in  the  heart 
— we  should  rejoice  in  contemplating  this  aUiance  between  the 
worth  of  man's  character,  on  the  one  hand  ;  and  the  security,  a^3 
well  as  the  abundance  of  his  outward  comforts  upon  the  other. 
And  such,  in  fact,  is  the  habitual  disposition  to  truth  in  the  world 
— that,  in  spite  of  the  great  moral  depravation  into  wliich  our 
species  has  obviously  fallen,  we  probably  do  not  overrate  the  pro- 
portion, when  we  affirm,  that  at  least  a  hundred  truths  are  uttered 
among  men  for  one  falsehood.  But  then,  in  the  vast  majority  of 
cases,  there  is  no  temptation  to  struggle  with,  nothing  by  whichi 
to  try  or  to  estimate  the  strength  of  the  virtue  so  that,  without 
virtue  being  at  all  concerned — in  it,  man's  words  might  spontane- 
ously flow  in  the  natural  current  of  his  ideas,  of  the  knowledge 
or  the  convictions  which  belong  to  him.  But  more  than  this. 
Instead  of  selfishness  seducing  man,  which  it  often  does,  from  the 
observations  of  truth  and  honesty — it  vastly  oftcner  is  on  the 
side  of  these  observations.  Generally  speaking,  it  is  not  more 
his  interest  that  he  should  have  men  of  integrity  to  deal  with — 
than  that  he  himself  should,  in  his  own  dealings,  be  strictly  obser- 
vant of  this  virtue.  To  be  abandoned  by  the  confidence  of  his 
fellows,  h€  would  find  to  be  not  more  mortifying  to  his  pride,  than 
ruinous  to  his  prosperity  in  the  world.  We  are  aware  that  many 
an  occasional  harvest  is  made  from  deceit  and  injustice  ;  but,  in 
the  vast  majority  of  cases,  men  would  cease  to  thrive  when  they 


184  RELATION    OF    THE    SPECIAL    AFFECTIONS 

ceased  to  be  trusted.  A  man's  actual  truth  is  not  more  beneficial 
to  others,  than  the  reputation  of  it  is  gainful  to  himself.  And 
therefore  it  is,  that,  throughout  the  mercantile  M^orld,  men  are  as 
sensitive  of  an  aspersion  on  their  name,  as  they  would  be  of  an 
encroachment  on  their  property.  The  one,  in  fact,  is  tantamount 
to  the  other.  It  is  thus,  that,  under  the  constraints  of  selfishness 
alone,  fidelity  and  justice  maybe  in  copious  and  current  observa- 
tion among  men  ;  and  while,  perhaps,  the  principle  of  these  vir- 
tues is  exceedingly  frail  and  uncertain  in  all  hearts — human  so- 
ciety may  still  subsist  by  the  literal  and  outward  observation  of 
them. 

3.   Here  then  is  the  example,  not  of  a  virtue  in  principle,  but 
of  a  virtue  in  performance,  with  all  the  indispensable  benefits  of 
that  performance,  being  sustained  on  the  soil  of  selfishness. 
Were  a  profound  observer  of  human  life  to  take  account  of  all 
the  honesties  of  mercantile  intercourse,  he  would  find,  that,  in 
the  general  amount  of  them,  they  were  mainly  due  to  the  opera- 
tion of  this  cause  ;   or  that  they  were  so  prevalent  in  society,  be- 
cause each  man  was  bound  to  their  observance,  by  the  tie  of  his 
own  personal  interest — insomuch,  that  if  this  particular  tie  were 
broken,  it  would  as  surely  derange  or  break  up  the  world  of  trade, 
as  the  world  of  matter  would  become  an  inert  or  turbid  chaos, 
on  the  repeal  or  suspension  of  the  law  of  gravitation.    Confidence, 
the  very  soul  of  commercial  enterprize,  and  without  which  the 
transactions  of  merchandize  were  impossible,  is  the  goodly  re- 
sult, not  of  that  native  respect  which  each  man  has  for  another's 
rights,  but  of  that  native  regard  which  each  man  has  for  his  own 
special  advantage.     This  forms  another  example  of  a  great  and 
general  good  wrought  out  for  society — while  each  component 
member  is  intently  set,  only  on  a  distinct  and  specific  good  for 
himself — a  high  interest,  which  could  not  have  been  confided  to 
human  virtue ;  but  which  has  been  skilfully  extracted  from  the 
workings  of  human  selfishness.     In  as  far  as  truth  and  justice 
prevail  in  the  world,  not  by  the  operation  of  principle  but  of  po- 
licy, in  so  far' the  goodness  of  man  has  no  share  in  it :   but  so 
beneficent  a  result  out  of  such  unpromising  materials,  speaks  all 
the  more  emphatically  both  for  the  wisdom  and  the  goodness 
of  God. 

4.  But  in  this  there  is  no  singularity.  Other  examples  can  be 
named,  of  God  placing  us  in  such  circumstances,  as  to  enlist 
even  our  selfishness  on  the  side  of  virtuous  conduct ;  or  im- 
planting such  special  afl?ections,  as  do,  by  their  own  impulse,  lead 
to  that  conduct,  although  virtuousness  is  not  in  all  our  thoughts. 
We  are  often  so  actuated,  as  to  do  what  is  best  for  society,  at 
the  very  time  that  the  good  of  society  is  forming  no  part  of  our 


OF    OUR    NATURE    TO    VIRTUE.  185 

concern  ;  and  our  footsteps  are  often  directed  in  that  very  path, 
which  a  moral  regard  to  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  species 
would  dictate — without  any  moral  purpose  having  been  conceived 
or  any  moral  principle  been  in  exercise  within  us.  It  is  thus 
that  our  resentment  operates  as  a  check  on  the  injuriousness  of 
others,  although  our  single  aim  be  the  protection  of  our  own  in- 
terests— not  the  diminution  of  violence  or  injustice  in  the  world  : 
And  thus  too  our  own  dread  of  resentment  from  others,  works  the 
same  outward  effect,  which  honour  or  a  respect  for  their  rights 
would  have  had  upon  our  transactions,  which  delicacy  or  a  re- 
spect for  their  feelings  would  have  had  upon  our  converse  with 
those  around  us.  It  is  in  this  way  that  God  makes  the  wrath  of 
man  to  praise  Him  ;  and  the  same  is  true  of  other  affections  of 
our  nature,  which  have  less  the  character  of  selfishness,  than 
either  anger  or  fear.  It  is  not  because  prompted  by  a  sense  of 
duty,  but  under  the  force  of  a  mere  natural  proneness,  that  mo- 
thers watch  so  assiduously  over  the  helplessness,  and  fathers  toil 
so  painfully  for  the  subsistence  of  their  children.  Even  com- 
passion, with  the  speed  and  the  discrimination  of  its  movements, 
does  for  human  life,  more  than  man  is  capable  of  doing  with  his 
highest  efforts  of  morality  and  reason — yet,  not  in  the  shape  of  a 
principle,  but  in  the  shape  of  a  strong  constitutional  propensity. 
The  good  is  rendered,  not  by  man  acting  as  he  thinks  that  he 
ought,  or  under  the  force  of  a  moral  suggestion  ;  but  man  acting 
because  he  feels  himself  constrained,  as  if  by  the  force  of  a  ph} - 
sical  necessity — not  surely  because,  in  the  exercise  of  a  sove- 
reign liberty,  he  hath  assumed  a  lordly  ascendant  over  all  the  in- 
ferior passions  of  his  nature  ;  but  because  himself  is  lorded  over 
by  a  law  of  his  nature,  having  in  it  all  the  might  and  mastery  of 
a  passion.  It  is  v^hen,  in  the  contemplation  of  phenomena  like 
these,  we  are  enabled  to  view  man  as  an  instrument,  that  we  are 
also  led  more  clearly  to  perceive  who  the  agent  is — not  the  being 
who  is  endowed,  but  the  Being  who  has  endowed  him.  The 
instinct  of  animals  is  a  substitute  for  their  wisdom ;  but,  at  the 
same  time,  a  palpable  demonstration  of  the  wisdom  of  God. 
Man  also  has  his  instincts,  which  serve  as  the  substitutes  of  mo- 
ral goodness  in  him ;  but  which  therefore  mark  all  the  more 
strongly,  by  their  beneficial  operation  the  goodness  of  his  Maker.* 

*  Dr.  Smilh  in  his  Theory  of  Moral  Scntimonts  has  well  remarked  that — "  thougli 
iti  accountinjj  for  the  operations  of  bodies,  we  never  fjiil  to  distinguish  the  efficient 
from  the  final  cause,  in  accounlinj;  for  thoae  of  the  mind,  we  are  very  apt  to  confound 
these  two  different  things  with  one  anotlier.  Wlien  by  natural  principles  we  are  led 
to  advance  those  ends  which  a  refined  and  enlightened  reason  would  recommend  to  us, 
we  are  very  to  impute  to  that  reason,  as  to  their  efficient  cause,  the  sentiments  and 
actions  by  which  we  advance  those  ends,  and  to  imagine  that  to  be  the  wisdom  of 
man,  which  in  reality  is  the  wisdom  of  God," 
16* 


186  RELATION    OF    THE    SPECIAL    AFFECTIONS 

5.  To  see  how  widely  these  gifts  or  endowments  of  our  nature 
by  the  hand  of  God,  may  stand  apart  from  aught  Hke  proper 
goodness  or  virtue  in  the  heart  of  man — we  have  only  to  witness 
the  similar  provision  which  has  been  made  for  the  care  and  pre- 
servation of  the  inferior  animals.  The  anger  which  arouses  to 
defence  against  injury,  and  the  fear  which  prompts  to  an  escape 
from  it,  and  the  maternal  affection  which  nourishes  and  rears  for- 
ward the  successive  young  into  a  condition  of  strength  and  inde- 
pendence for  the  protection  of  themselves — these  all  have  their 
indispensable  uses,  for  upholding  and  perpetuating  the  various 
tribes  of  living  creatures,  who  at  the  same  time  are  alike  inca- 
pable of  morality  and  reason.  There  is  no  moral  purpose  served 
by  these  implantations,  so  far  at  least  as  respects  the  creatxires 
themselves,  with  whom  virtue  is  a  thing  utterly  incompetent  and 
unattainable.  In  reference  to  them,  they  may  be  viewed  simply 
as  beneficent  contrivances,  and  as  bespeaking  no  other  charac- 
teristic on  the  part  of  the  Deity  than  that  of  pine  kindness,  or 
regard  for  the  happiness  and  salety,  throughout  their  respective 
generations,  of  the  treatures  whom  He  has  made.  This  might 
help  us  to  distinguish  between  those  mental  endoM  iiicnts  of  our 
own  species,  wliich  have  but  for  their  object  the  comfort  and  pro- 
tection ;  and  those  which  have  for  their  object  the  character  of 
man.  The  former  we  have  in  common  with  the  inferior  ani- 
mals ;  and  so  far  they  only  discover  to  us  the  kindness  of  the 
divine  natinc,  or  the  parental  and  benevolent  concern  which  God 
takes  in  us.  The  latter  are  peculiar  to  our  race,  and  are  indi- 
cated by  certain  phenomena  of  our  mental  nature,  in  which  the 
Deasts  of  the  field  and  the  fowls  of  the  air  have  no  share  with  us 
— by  the  conscience  within  us,  asserting  its  own  rightful  supre- 
macy over  all  our  affections  and  doings  ;  by  our  capacities  for 
virtue  and  vice,  along  with  the  pleasures  or  the  pains  which  are 
respectively  blended  with  them  ;  and  finally  by  the  operation  of 
habit,  whose  office,  like  that  of  a  schoolmaster,  is  to  perfect  our 
education,  and  to  fix,  in  one  way  or  other,  but  at  length  unmove- 
ably,  the  character  of  its  disciples.  These  present  us  with  a  dis- 
tinct exhibition  of  the  Deity,  or  a  distinct  and  additional  relation 
in  which  He  stands  to  us — revealing  to  us,  not  Him  only  as  the 
affectionate  Father,  and  ourselves  only  as  the  fondlings  of  His 
regard  ;  but  Him  also  as  the  great  moral  Teacher,  the  Lawgiver, 
and  moral  Governor  of  man,  and  ourselves  in  a  state  of  pupil- 
lage and  probation,  or  as  the  subjects  of  a  moral  discipline. 

6.  And  here  it  may  be  proper  to  remark,  that  we  understand 
by  the  goodness  of  God,  not  His  benevolence  or  His  kindness 
alone.  The  term  is  comprehensive  of  all  moral  excellence. 
Truth,  and  justice,  and  that  strong  repugnance  to  moral  evil 


OF    OUR    NATURE    TO    VIRTUE.  187 

which  has  received  the  peculiar  denomination  of  HoHness — 
these  are  all  good  moral  properties,  and  so  enter  into  the  com- 
position of  perfect  moral  goodness.  There  are  some  who  have 
analyzed,  or,  in  the  mere  force  of  their  own  wishfulness,  would 
resolve  the  whole  character  of  the  Deity  into  but  one  attribute — 
that  of  a  placid  undistinguishing  tenderness  ;  and,  in  virtue  of 
this  tasteful  or  sentimental  but  withal  meagre  imagination,  would 
they  despoil  Him  of  all  sovereignty  and  of  all  sacredness — hold- 
ing Him  forth  as  but  the  indulgent  father,  and  not  also  as  the 
righteous  Governor  of  men.  But  this  analysis  is  as  impractica- 
ble in  the  character  of  God,  as  we  have  already  found  it  to  be  in 
the  character  of  man.*  Unsophisticated  conscience  speaks  dif- 
ferently. The  forebodings  of  the  human  spirit  in  regard  to 
futurity,  as  well  as  the  present  phenomena  of  human  life,  point 
to  truth  and  righteousness,  as  distinct  and  stable  and  independent 
perfections  of  the  divine  nature — however  glossed  or  disguised 
they  may  have  been,  by  the  patrons  of  a  mild  and  easy  religion. 
In  the  various  provisions  of  nature  for  the  defence  and  security 
of  the  inferior  animals,  we  may  read  but  one  lesson — the  bene- 
volence of  its  Author.  In  the  like  provisions,  whether  for  the 
defence  and  prolongation  of  human  life,  or  the  maintenance  of 
human  society — we  read  that  lesson  too,  but  other  lessons  ia 
conjunction  with  it.  For  in  the  larger  capacities  of  man,  and 
more  especially  in  his  possession  of  a  moral  nature,  do  we 
regard  him  as  born  for  something  ulterior  and  something  higher 
than  the  passing  enjoyments  of  a  brief  and  ephemeral  existence. 
And  so  wfien  we  witness  in  the  provisions,  whether  of  his  animal 
or  mental  economy,  a  subserviency  to  the  protection,  or  even  to 
the  enjovmento  of  his  transition  state — we  cannot  disconnect 
this  with  subserviency  to  the  remoter  objects  of  that  ultimate 
state  whither  he  is  going.  In  the  instinctive  fondness  of  parents, 
and  the  affinities  of  kindness  from  the  fellows  of  our  species,  and 
even  the  private  affections  of  anger  and  fear, — v/e  behold  so 
many  elements  conjoined  into  what  may  be  termed  an  apparatus 
of  guardianship  ;  and  such  an  apparatus  has  been  reared  by 
Providence  in  behalf  of  every  creature  that  breathes.  But  in 
the  case  of  man,  with  his  larger  capacities  and  prospects,  the 
terminating  object,  even  of  such  an  intermediate  and  temporary 
apparatus,  is  not  to  secure  for  him,  the  safety  or  happiness  of 
the  present  life.  It  is  to  fulfil  the  period,  and  subserve  the 
purposes  of  a  moral  discipline.  For  meanwhile  character  is 
ripening ;  and,  whether  good  or  bad,  settling  by  the  power  and 
operation  of  habit  into  a  state  of  inveteracy — and  so,  as  to  fix 

*  Chap.  vii.  Art.  7. 


188  RELATION    OF    THE    SPECIAL    AFFECTIONS 

and  prepare  the  disciples  of  a  probationary  state  for  their  final 
destinations.  What  to  the  inferior  animals  are  the  provisions 
of  a  life,  are  to  man  the  accommodations  of  a  journey.  In  the 
one  we  singly  behold  the  indications  of  a  divine  benevolence. 
With  the  other,  we  connect  the  purposes  of  a  divine  administra- 
tion ;  and  beside  the  love  and  liberality  of  a  Parent,  we  recog- 
nize the  designs  of  a  Teacher,  and  Governor,  and  Judge. 

7.  And  these  special  afl'ections,  though  their  present  and  more 
conspicuous  use  be  to  uphold  the  existing  economy  of  life,  are 
not  without  their  influence  and  their  uses  in  a  system  of  moral 
discipline.     And  it  is  quite  obvious,  that,  ere  v.e  can  pronounce 
on  the  strict  and  essential  virtuousness  of  any  human  being,  they 
must  be  admitted  into  the  reckoning.     In  estimating  the  precise 
moral  quality  of  any  beneficence  which  man  may  have  executed, 
it  is  indispensable  to  know,  in  how  far  he  was  schooled  into  it  at 
the  bidding  of  principle,  and  in  hov/  far  urged  forward  to  it  by  the 
impulse  of  a  special  affection.     To  do  good  to  another  because 
he  feels  that  he  ought,  is  an  essentially  distinct  exhibition  from 
doing  the  same  good,  by  the  force  of  parental  love,  or  of  an 
instinctive   and    spontaneous    compassion — as    distinct   as   the 
strength  of  a  constitutionally  implanted  desire  is  from  the  sense 
of  a  morally  incumbent  obligation.     In  as  far  as  I  am  prompted 
to  the  relief  of  distress,  by  a  movement  of  natural   pity — in  so 
far  less  is  left  for  virtue  to  do.     In  as  far  as  I  am  restrained 
from  the  out-breakings  of  an  anger  which  tumultuates  within,  by 
the  dread  of  a  counter-resentment  and  retaliation  from  without — 
in  so  far  virtue  has  less  to  resist.     It  is  thus  that   the  special 
affections  may  at  once  lighten  the  tasks  and  lessen  the  tempta- 
tions of  virtue  ;   and,  whether  in  the  way  of  help  at  one  time  or 
of  defence  at  another,  may  save  (he  very  existence  of  a  princi- 
ple, which  in  its  own  unaided  frailty,  might,  among  the  rude 
conflicts  of  life,  have  else  been  overborne.     It  is  perhaps  indis- 
pensable to  the  very  being  of  virtue  among  men,  that,  by  means 
of  the  special  affections,  a  certain  force  of  inclination  has  been 
superadded  to  the  force  of  principle — we  doubt  not,  in  propor- 
tions of  highest  v/isdom,  of  most  exquisite  skill  and  delicacy. 
But  still  the  strength  of  the  one  must  be  deducted,  in  computing 
the  real  amoimt  and  strength  of  the  other ;   and  so  the  special 
affections  of  our  nature  not  only  subserve  a  purpose  in  time,  but 
are  of  essential  and  intimate  effect  in  the  processes  of  our  moral 
preparation,  and  will  eventually  tell  on  the  high  retributions  and 
judgments  of  eternity. 

8.  Man  is  not  a  utilitarian  either  in  his  propensities  or  in 
his  principles.  When  doing  what  he  likes — it  is  not  always,  it 
is  not  generally,  because  of  its  perceived  usefulness,  that  he  so 


OF    OUR    NATURE    TO    VIRTUE.  189 

likes  It.     But  his  inclinations,  these  properties  of  his  nature, 
have  been  so  adapted  both  to  the  material  world  and  to  human 
society,  that  a  great  accompanying  or  great  resulting  usefulness, 
is  the  effect  of  that  particular  constitution  which  God  hath  given 
to  him.    And  when  doing  what  he  feels  that  he  ought,  it  is  far  from 
always  because  of  its  perceived  usefulness,  that  he  so  feels.     But 
God  hath  so  formed  our  mental  constitution,  and  hath  so  adapted 
the  whole  economy  of  external  things  to  the  stable  and  everlast- 
ing principles  of  virtue,  that,  in  effect  and  historical  fulfilment, 
the  greatest  virtue  and  the  greatest  happiness  are  at  one.     But 
the  union  of  these  two  does  not  constitute  their  unity.     Virtue  is 
not  right,  because  it  is  useful ;  but  God  hath  made  it  useful, 
because  it  is  right.     He  both  loves  virtue,  and  wills  the  happi- 
ness of  his  creatures — this  benevolence  of  will,  being  itself,  not 
the  whole,  but  one  of  the  brightest  moralities  in  the  character  of 
the  Godhead.     He  wills  the  happiness  of  man,  but  wills  his  vir- 
tue more  ;  and  accordingly,  hath  so  constructed  both  the  system 
of  humanity,  and  the  system  of  external  nature,  that,  only  through 
the  medium  of  virtue,  can  any  substantial  or  lasting  happiness  be 
realized.     The  utilitarians  have  confounded  these  two  elements, 
because  of  the  inseparable  yet  contingent  alliance,  which  a  God 
of  virtue  hath  established  between  them.     The  Cosmopolites  are 
for  merging  all  the  particular  affections  into  one  ;  and  would 
substitute  in  their  place  a  general  desire  for  the  greatest  possible 
amount  of  good  to  others,  as  the  alone  guide  and  impellent  of 
human  conduct.      And  the  UtiUtarians  are  for  merging  all  the 
particular  virtues  into  one  ;  and  would  substitute  in  their  place 
the  greatest  usefulness,  as  the  alone  principle  to  which  every 
question  respecting  the  morality  of  actions  should  be  referred. 
The  former  would  do  away  friendship,  and  patriotism,  and  all  the 
partialities  or  even  instincts  of  relationship,  from  the  system  of 
human  nature.      The  latter  would  at  least  degrade,  if  not  do 
away,  truth  and  justice  from  the  place  which  they  now  hold  in 
the  system  of  Ethics.     The  desolating  effect  of  such  changes  on 
the  happiness  and  security  of  social  life,  would  exhibit  the  vast 
superiority  of  the  existent  economy  of  things,  over  that  specula- 
tive economy  into  which  these  theorists  would  transform  it ;   or, 
in  other  words,  would  prove  by  how  mighty  an  interval,  the  good- 
ness and  the  wisdom  of  God  transcended  both  the  goodness  and 
the  wisdom  of  man. 

9.  The  whole  of  this  speculation,  if  followed  out  into  its  just 
and  legitimate  consequences,  would  serve  greatly  to  humble  and 
reduce  our  estimate  of  human  virtue.  Nothing  is  virtuous,  but 
what  is  done  imder  a  sense  of  duty ;  or  done,  simply  and  solely 
because  it  ought.     It  is  only  in  as  far  as  this   consideration  is 


190  RELATION    OF    THE    SPECIAL    AFFECTIONS 

present  to  the  mind,  and  is  of  practical  and  prevalent  operation 
there — that  man  can  be  said  to  feel  virtuously,  or  to  act  vir- 
tuously. We  should  not  think  of  affixing  this  moral  character- 
istic to  any  performance  hovi^ever  beneficial,  that  is  done  under 
the  mere  impulse  of  a  headlong  sensibility,  without  any  sense 
or  any  sentiment  of  a  moral  obligation.  In  every  good  action, 
that  is  named  good  because  useful  to  society,  we  should  subduct 
or  separate  all  which  is  due  to  the  force  of  a  special  affection, 
that  we  might  precisely  ascertain  how  much  or  how  little  remains, 
which  may  be  due  to  the  force  of  principle.  The  inferior  ani- 
mals, destitute  though  they  be  of  a  moral  nature  and  therefore 
incapable  of  virtue,  share  with  us  in  some  of  the  most  useful 
and  amiable  instincts  which  belong  to  humanity ;  and  when  we 
stop  to  admire  the  workings  of  nature's  sensibility — whether  in 
the  tears  that  compassion  sheds  over  the  miseries  of  the  unfor- 
tunate, or  in  the  smiles  and  endearments  which  are  lavished  by 
a  mother  upon  her  infant  family,  we  seldom  reflect  how  little  of 
the  real  and  proper  character  of  virtue  is  there.  We  accredit 
man,  as  if  they  were  his  own  principles,  with  those  instincts 
which  the  divinity  hath  implanted  within  him  ;  and  it  aggravates 
the  error,  or  rather  the  guilt  of  so  perverse  a  reckoning — that, 
while  we  offer  this  incense  to  humanity,  we  forget  all  the  while 
the  hand  of  Him,  by  whom  it  is  that  humanity  is  so  bountifully 
gifted  and  so  beauteously  adorned. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

J\liscellaneous  Evidences  of  virtuous  and  benevolent  Design^  in 
the  Adaptation  of  External  JYature  to  the  JVForal  Constitution 
of  Man, 

1.  It  will  be  enough,  if,  after  having  led  the  way  on  a  new 
territory  of  investigation,  we  shall  select  one  or  two  out  of  the 
goodly  number  of  instances,  as  specimens  of  the  richness  and 
fertility  of  the  land.  We  have  already  endeavoured  to  prove, 
why  a  number  of  distinct  benefits,  even  though  reducible  by 
analysis  into  one  principle  or  law,  still  affords  not  a  solitary,  but 
a  multiple  of  evidence,  of  the  wise  and  benevolent  Creator.* 
This  evidence,  in  fact,  is  proportioned  to  the  number,  not  of 
efficient  but  final  causes  in  nature — so  that  each  separate  exam- 
ple of  a  good  rendered  to  humanity,  in  virtue  of  its  actual  con- 
stitution, may  be  regarded  as  a  separate  and  additional  evidence, 
of  its  having  been  formed  by  an  artificer,  at  once  of  intelligent 
device  and  kind  purposes.  The  reduction  of  these  examples 
into  fewer  laws  does  not  extenuate  the  argument  for  His  good- 
ness ;  and  it  may  enhance  the  argument  for  His  wisdom. 

2.  The  first  instance  which  occurs  to  us  is  that  law  of  affec- 
tion, by  which  its  intensity  or  strength  is  proportioned  to  the  help- 
lessness of  its  object.  It  takes  a  direction  downwards ;  de- 
scending, for  example,  with  much  greater  force  from  parents  to 
children,  than  ascending  from  children  to  parents  back  again — 
save  when  they  lapse  again  into  second  infancy,  and  the  duteous 
devoted  attendance  by  the  helpful  daughters  of  a  family,  through- 
out the  protracted  ailments  and  infirmity  of  their  declining  years, 
instead  of  an  exception,  is  in  truth  a  confirmation  of  the  law — 
as  much  so,  as  the  stronger  attraction  of  a  mother's  heart  to- 
wards the  youngest  of  the  family  ;  or,  more  impressive  still,  her 
more  special  and  concentrated  regard  towards  her  sickly  or  de- 
crepit or  even  idiot  boy.  It  is  impossible  not  to  recognize  in  this 
beautiful  determination  of  nature,  the  benevolence  of  nature's 
God. 

3.  Such  instances  could  be  greatly  multiplied  ;  and  we  invite 
the  future  explorers  of  this  untrodden  field  to  the  task  of  collect- 
ing them.  We  hasten  to  instances  of  another  kind,  which  we 
all  the  more  gladly  seize  upon,  as   being   cases  of  purest  and 

*  Introductory  Chapter.     Art.  27,  28,  29. 


192        *  MISCELLANEOUS    ADAPTATIONS. 

Strictest  adaptation,  not  of  the  external  mental,  but  of  the  external 
material  world,  to  the  moral  constitution  of  man. 

4.  The  power  of  speech  is  precisely  such  an  adaptation. 
Whether  we  regard  the  organs  of  utterance  and  hearing  in  man, 
or  the  aerial  medium  by  which  sounds  are  conveyed — do  we  be- 
hold a  pure  subserviency  of  the  material  to  the  mental  system 
of  our  world.  It  is  true  that  the  great  object  subserved  by  it,  is 
the  action  and  reaction  between  mind  and  mind — nor  can  we  es- 
timate this  object  too  highly,  when  we  think  of  the  mighty  influ- 
ence of  language,  both  on  the  moral  and  intellectual  condition 
of  our  species.  Still  it  is  by  means  of  an  elaborate  material 
construction  that  this  pathway  has  been  formed,  from  one  heart 
and  from  one  understanding  to  another.  And  therefore  it  is, 
that  the  faculty  of  communication  by  words,  with  all  the  power 
and  flexibility  which  belong  to  it,  by  which  the  countless  benefits 
of  human  intercourse  are  secured,  and  all  the  stores  of  sentiment 
and  thought  are  turned  into  a  common  property  for  the  good  of 
mankind,  may  well  be  ranked  among  the  highest  of  the  examples 
that  we  are  now  in  quest  of — it  being  indeed  as  illustrious  an 
adaptation  as  can  be  named  of  External  Nature  to  the  Moral  and 
Intellectual  Constitution  of  Man.  Of  the  converse  of  disembodied 
spirits  we  know  nothing.  But  to  man  cased  in  materialism,  cer- 
tain material  passages  or  ducts  of  conveyance,  for  the  interchange 
of  thought  and  feeling  between  one  mind  and  another  seem  in- 
dispensable. The  exquisite  provision  which  has  been  made  for 
these,  both  in  the  powers  of  articulation  and  hearing,  as  also  in 
that  intermediate  element,  by  the  pulsations  of  which  ideas 
are  borne  forward,  as  on  so  many  winged  messengers  from  one 
intellect  to  another — bespeaks,  and  perhaps  more  impressively 
than  any  other  phenomena  in  nature,  the  contrivance  of  a  su- 
preme artificer,  the  device  and  finger  of  a  Deity.* 

5.  But  articulate  and  arbitrary  sound  is  not  the  only  vehicle, 
either  of  meaning  or  sentiment.  There  is  a  natural  as  well  as 
artificial  language,  consisting  chiefly  of  expressive  tones — 
though  greatly  reinforced  both  by  expressive  looks  and  express- 
ive gestures.  The  voice,  by  its  intonations  alone,  is  a  powerful 
instrument  for  the  propagation  of  sympathy  between  man  and 
man  ;  and  there  is  similarity  enough  between  us  and  the  infe- 
rior animals,  in  the  natural  signs  of  various  of  the  emotions, 

*  It  will  at  once  be  seen  that  the  same  observations  may  be  extended  to  written 
language,  and  to  the  fitness  of  those  materials  which  subserve  through  its  means,  the 
wide  and  rapid  communication  of  human  thoughts.  We  in  truth  could  have  multi- 
plied indefinitely  such  instances  of  adaptation  as  we  are  now  giving — but  we  judge  it 
better  to  have  confined  ourselves  throughout  the  volume,  to  matters  of  a  more  rudi- 
mental  and  general  character — leaving  the  manifold  detail  and  fuUer  developements 
of  the  argument  to  future  labourers  in  the  field. 


MISCELLANEOUS    ADAPTATIONS.  193 

as  anger  and  fear  and  grief  and  cheerfulness,  for  the  sympathy 
being  extended  beyond  the  limits  of  our  own  species,  and  over  a 
great  part  of  the  sentient  creation.  We  learn  by  experience 
and  association  the  significancy  of  the  merely  vocal  apart  from 
vocables  ;  for  almost  each  shade  of  meaning,  at  least  each  dis- 
tinct sensibility,  has  its  own  appropriate  intonation — so  that, 
without  catching  one  syllable  of  the  utterance,  we  can,  from  its 
melody  alone,  often  tell  what  are  the  workings  of  the  heart, 
and  even  what  are  the  workingrs  of  the  intellect.  It  is  thus 
that  music,  even  though  altogether  apart  from  words,  is  so 
powerfully  fitted,  both  to  represent  and  to  awaken  the  mental 
processes — insomuch  that,  without  the  aid  of  spoken  charac- 
ters, many  a  story  of  deepest  interest  is  most  impressively 
told,  many  a  noble  or  tender  sentiment  is  most  emphatically 
conveyed  by  it.  It  says  much  for  the  native  and  original  pre- 
dominance of  virtue — it  may  be  deemed  another  assertion  of  its 
designed  pre-eminence  in  the  world,  that  our  best  and  highest 
music  is  that  which  is  charged  with  loftiest  principle,  whether  it 
breathes  in  orisons  of  sacredness,  or  is  employed  to  kindle  the 
purposes  and  to  animate  the  struggles  of  resolved  patriotism  ; 
and  that  never  does  it  fall  with  more  exquisite  cadence  on  the 
ear  of  the  dehghtful  listener,  than  when  attuned  to  the  home 
sympathies  of  nature,  it  tells  in  accents  of  love  or  pity,  of  its 
woes  and  its  wishes  for  all  humanity.  The  power  and  express- 
iveness of  music  may  well  be  regarded  as  a  most  beauteous 
adaptation  of  external  Nature  to  the  Moral  Constitution  of  Man 
— for  what  can  be  more  adapted  to  his  moral  constitution,  than 
that  which  is  so  helpful  as  music  eminently  is,  to  his  moral  cul- 
ture ?  Its  sweetest  sounds  are  those  of  kind  affection.  Its  sub- 
limest  sounds  are  those  most  expressive  of  moral  heroism ;  or 
most  fitted  to  solemnize  the  devotions  of  the  heart,  and  prompt 
the  aspirations  and  resolves  of  exalted  piety. 

6.  A  philosophy  of  taste  has  been  founded  on  this  contem- 
plation ;  and  some  have  contended  that  both  the  beauty  and  the 
sublimity  of  sounds  are  derived  from  their  association  with 
moral  qualities  alone.  Without  affirming  that  association  is  the 
only,  or  the  universal  cause,  it  must  at  least  be  admitted  to  have 
a  very  extensive  influence  over  this  class  of  our  emotions.  If 
each  of  the  mental  affections  have  its  own  appropriate  intonation; 
and  there  be  the  same  or  similar  intonations  given  forth,  either 
by  the  inanimate  creation  or  by  the  creatures  having  life  which 
are  inferior  to  man — then,  frequent  and  familiar  on  every  side 
of  him,  must  be  many  of  those  sounds  by  which  human  passions 
are  suggested,  and  the  tnemory  of  things  awakened  which  are 
fitted  to  affect  and  interest  the  heart.  And  thus  it  is,  that,  to 
17 


194  MISCELLANEOUS    ADAPTATIONS. 

the  ear  of  a  poet,  all  nature  is  vocal  with  sentiment ;  and  he  can 
fancy  a  genius  or  residing  spirit,  in  the  ocean,  or  in  the  tempest, 
or  in  the  rushing  waterfall,  or  in  the  stream  whose  softer  mur- 
murs would  lull  him  to  repose — or  in  the  mighty  forest,  when 
he  hears  the  general  sigh  omitted  by  its  innumerable  leaves  as 
they  rustle  in  the  wind,  and  from  whose  fitful  changes  he  seems 
to  catch  the  import  of  some  deep  and  mysterious  soliloquy.  But 
the  imagination  will  be  still  more  readily  excited  by  the  notes 
and  the  cries  of  animals,  as  when  the  peopled  grove  awakens  to 
harmony ;  or  when  it  is  figured,  that,  amid  the  amplitudes  of 
savage  and  solitary  nature,  the  lioness  robbed  of  her  whelps, 
calls  forth  the  echoes  of  the  wilderness — making  it  to  ring  with 
the  proclamation  of  her  wrongs.  But,  without  conceiving  any 
such  rare  or  extreme  sensibility  as  this,  there  is  a  common,  an 
every-day  enjoyment  which  all  have  in  the  sounds  of  nature ; 
and,  as  far  as  sympathy  with  human  emotions  is  awakened  by 
them,  and  this  forms  an  ingredient  of  the  pleasure,  it  affords 
another  fine  example,  of  an  adaptation  in  the  external  world  to 
the  mental  constitution  of  its  occupiers. 

7.  But  the  same  philosophy  has  been  extended  to  sights  as 
well  as  sounds.  The  interchange  of  mind  with  mind  is  not 
restricted  to  language.  There  is  an  interchange  by  looks  also ; 
and  the  ever-varying  hues  of  the  mind  are  represented,  not  by 
the  complexion  of  the  face  alone  or  the  composition  of  its  fea- 
tures, but  by  the  attitude  and  gestures  of  the  body.*  It  is  thus 
that  human  sentiment  or  passion  may  come  to  be  expressed 
by  the  colour  and  form  and  even  the  motion  of  visible  things ; 
by  a  kindred  physiognomy  for  all  the  like  emotions  on  the 
part  of  the  inferior  animals — nay,  by  a  certain  countenance  or 
shape  in  the  objects  of  mute  and  unconscious  nature.  It  is 
thus  that  a  moral  investment  sits  on  the  aspects  of  the  purely 
material  world ;  and  we  accordingly  speak  of  the  modesty  of 
the  violet,  the  innocence  of  the  lily,  the  commanding  mountain, 
the  smihng  landscape.  Each  material  object  has  its  character, 
as  is  amply  set  forth  in  the  beautiful  illustrations  of  Mr.  Alison  ; 
and  so  to  the  poet's  eye,  the  whole  panorama  of  nature  is  one 
grand  personification,  lighted  up  throughout  by  consciousness 
and  feeling.  This  is  the  reason  why  in  all  languages,  material 
images  and  moral  characteristics  are  so  blended  and  identified. 

*  We  may  here  state  that  as  the  air  is  the  medium  by  which  sounds  are  conveyed 
— so  light  may  be  regarded  as  standing  in  the  same  relation  to  those  natural  signs 
whether  of  colour,  gesture  or  attitude,  which  are  addressed  to  the  eye.  Much  could 
be  said  respecting  the  adaptation  of  light  to  the  moral  constitution  of  man — arising 
from  the  power  which  the  very  observation  of  our  fellow-men  has  in  repressing,  so 
long  as  we  are  under  it,  indecency  or  crime.  The  works  of  iniquity  are  called  works 
of  dsu'kness. 


MISCELLANEOUS    ADAPTATIONS.  195 

It  is  the  law  of  association  which  thus  connects  the  two  worlds 
of  sense  and  of  sentiment.     Sublimity  in  the  one  is  the  counter- 
part to  moral  greatness  in  the  other ;  and  beauty  in  the  one  is 
the  counterpart  to  moral  delicacy  in  the  other.     Both  the  grace- 
ful and  the  grand  of  human  character  are  as  effectually  embo- 
died in  the  objects  and  scenery  of  nature,  as  in  those  immortal 
forms  which  have  been  transmitted  by  the  hand  of  sculptors  to 
the  admiration  of  distant  ages.     It  is  a  noble  testimony  to  the 
righteousness  of  God,  that  the  moral  and  the  external  loveUness 
are  thus  harmonized — as  well  as  to  the  wisdom  which  has  so 
adapted  the  moral  and  the  material  system  to  each  other,  that 
supreme  virtue  and  supreme  beauty  are  at  one. 

"  ?Jind,  mind  alone,  bear  witness  eartli  and  heaven  ! 

The  living  fountain,  in  itself  contains 

Of  beauteous  and  sublime. 

There  hand  in  hand  sit  paramount  the  graces  ; 

There  enthroned,  celestial  Venus  with  divinest  airs 

Invites  the  soul  to  never  fading  joy."  Akenside. 

8.  And  we  may  here  remark  a  certain  neglect  of  external 
things  and  external  influences,  which,  however  enlightened  or 
transcendentally  rational  it  may  seem,  is  at  variance  with  truth 
of  principle  and  sound  philosophy.  We  would  instance  the  un- 
dervaluing of  the  natural  signs  in  eloquence,  although  their  effect 
makes  all  the  difference  in  point  of  impression  and  power  be- 
tween spoken  and  written  language — seeing  that,  superadded  to 
articulate  utterance,  the  eye  and  the  intonations  and  the  gestures 
also  serve  as  so  many  signals  of  conveyance  for  the  transmis- 
sion of  sentiment  from  one  mind  to  another.  It  is  thus  that  in- 
difference to  manner  or  even  to  dress,  may  be  as  grievous  a 
dereliction  against  the  real  philosophy  of  social  intercourse — as 
indifference  to  the  attitude  and  the  drapery  of  figures  would  be 
against  the  philosophy  of  the  fine  arts.  Both  proceed  on  the 
forgelfulness  of  that  adaptation,  in  virtue  of  which  materialism 
is  throughout  instinct  with  principle,  and  both  in  its  colouring 
and  forms,  gives  forth  the  most  significant  expressions  of  it. 
On  this  ground  too  we  would  affirm,  both  of  state  ceremonial 
and  professional  costume,  that  neither  of  them  is  insignificant ; 
and  that  he  who  in  the  spirit  of  rash  and  restless  innovation 
would  upset  them,  as  if  they  were  the  relics  of  a  gross  and  bar- 
baric age,  may  be  doing  violence  not  only  to  the  usages  of  vene- 
rable antiquity,  but  to  the  still  older  and  more  venerable  consti- 
tution of  human  nature — weakening  in  truth  the  bonds  of  social 
union,  by  dispensing  with  certain  of  those  influences  which  the 
Great  Author  of  our  constitution  desio;ned  for  the  consolidation 
and  good  order  of  society.     This  is  not  accordant  with  the  phi- 


196  MISCELLANEOUS    ADAPTATIONS. 

losophy  of  Butler,  who  wrote  on  the  "  use  of  externals  in  mat^ 
ters  of  reUgion," — nor  with  the  philosophy  of  those  who  prefer 
the  findings  of  experience,  however  irreducible  to  system  they 
may  be,  to  all  the  subtleties  or  simplifications  of  unsupported 
theory.* 

9.  Before  quitting  this  subject,  we  remark,  that  it  is  no  proof 
against  the  theory  which  makes  taste  a  derivative  from  morality, 
that  our  emotions  of  taste  may  be  vivid  and  powerful,  v/hile  our 
principles  of  morality  are  so  weak  as  to  have  no  ascendant  or 
governing  influence  over  the  conduct.  This  is  no  unusual  phe- 
nomenon of  our  mysterious  nature.  There  is  a  general  homage 
rendered  to  virtue  in  the  world ;  but  it  is  the  homage,  more  of 
a  dilettanti  than  of  an  obedient  and  practical  devotee.  This  is 
not  more  surprising,  than  that  the  man  of  profligate  habits  should 
have  a  tasteful  admiration  of  sacred  pictures  and  sacred  melo- 
dies ;  or  that,  with  the  heart  of  a  coward,  he  should  nevertheless 
catch  the  glow  of  at  least  a  momentary  inspiration  from  the 
music  of  war  and  patriotism.  It  seems  the  effect  and  evidence 
of  some  great  moral  derangement,  that  there  should  be  such  an 
incongruity  in  subjective  man  between  his  taste  and  his  princi- 
ples ;  and  the  evidence  is  not  lessened  but  confirmed,  when  we 
observe  a  like  incongruity  in  the  objective  nature  by  which  he 
is  surrounded — we  mean,  between  the  external  mental  and  ex- 
ternal material  world.  We  have  only  to  open  our  eyes  and  see 
how  wide,  in  point  of  lovelinesss,  the  contrast  or  dissimilarity  is, 
between  the  moral  and  the  material  of  our  actual  contemplation 
— the  one  coming  immediately  from  the  hand  of  God  ;  the  other 
tainted  and  transformed  by  the  spirit  of  man.  We  believe  with 
Alison  and  others,  that,  to  at  least  a  very  great  extent,  much  of 
the  beauty  of  visible  things  lies  in  association ;  that  it  is  this 
which  gives  its  reigning  expression  to  every  tree  and  lake  and 
waterfall,  and  which  may  be  said  to  have  impregnated  with  cha- 
racter the  whole  of  the  surrounding  landscape.  How  comes  it 
then,  that,  in  the  midst  of  living  society,  where  we  might  expect 
to  meet  with  the  originals  of  all  this  fascination,  we  find  scarcely 
any  other  thing  than  a  tame  and  uninteresting  level  of  the  flat 
and  the  sordid  and  the  ordinary — whereas,  in  that  inanimate 
scenery,  which  yields  but  the  faint  and  secondary  reflection  of 
moral  qualities,  there  is,  on  every  line  and  on  every  feature,  so 
vivid  an  impress  of  loveliness  and  glory  ?  One  cannot  go  forth 
of  the  crowded  city  to  the  fresh  and  the  fair  of  rural  nature,  with- 
out the  experience,  that,  while  in  the  moral  scene,  there  is  so 

*  The  perusal  of  those  works  which  Ireat  scientifically  of  the  fine  arts,  as  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds'  Discourses,  is  well  adapted  to  rebuke  and  rectify  the  light  estima- 
tion, in  which  all  sensible  accompaniments  are  apt  to  be  held  by  us. 


MISCELLANEOUS    ADAPTATIONS.  197 

much  to  thwart  and  to  revolt  and  to  irritate — in  the  natural 
scene,  all  is  gracefulness  and  harmony.  It  reminds  us  of  the 
contrast  which  is  sometimes  exhibited,  between  the  soft  and 
flowery  lawn  of  a  cultivated  domain,  and  the  dark  or  angry  spirit 
of  its  owner — of  whom  we  might  almost  imagine,  that  he  scowls 
from  the  battlements  of  his  castle,  on  the  intrusion  of  every  un- 
licensed visitor.  And  again  the  question  may  be  put — whence 
is  it  that  the  moral  picturesque  in  our  world  of  sense,  as  it  beams 
upon  us  from  its  woods  and  its  eminencies  and  its  sweet  recesses 
of  crystal  stream  or  of  grassy  sunshine,  should  yield  a  delight  so 
unqualified — while  the  primary  moral  characteristics,  of  which 
these  are  but  the  imagery  or  the  visible  representation,  should, 
in  our  world  of  human  spirits,  be  so  wholly  obliterated,  or  at 
least  so  wofully  deformed  ?  Does  it  not  look  as  if  a  blight  had 
come  over  the  face  of  our  terrestrial  creation,  which  hath  left  its 
materialism  in  a  great  measure  untouched,  while  it  hath  inflicted 
on  man  a  sore  and  withering  leprosy  1  Do  not  the  very  openness 
and  benignity  which  sit  on  the  aspect  of  nature  reproach  him,  for 
the  cold  and  narrow  and  creeping  jealousies  that  be  at  work  in 
his  own  selfish  and  suspicious  bosom ;  and  most  impressively 
tell  the  difference  between  what  man  is,  and  what  he  ought  to  be  ? 
10.  There  are  certain  other  adaptations;  but  on  which  we 
forbear  to  expatiate.*     Some  of  them  indeed  border  on  a  terri- 

*  It  must  be  obvious  that  \vc  cannot  exhaust  the  subject,  but  only  exemplify  it,  by 
means  of  a  few  specimens.  There  is  an  adaptation,  which,  had  it  occurred  in  time, 
might  have  been  stated  in  the  text — suggested  by  the  celebrated  fjuestion  respecting 
tlie  liberty  of  the  human  will.  We  cannot  but  admit  how  much  it  would  have  dete- 
riorated the  constitution  of  humanity,  or  rather  destroyed  one  of  its  noblest  and  most 
essential  parts,  had  it  been  so  constructed,  as  that  either  inan  was  not  accountable 
f->r  his  own  acLionS;  or  that  these  actions  were  free  in  the  sense  contended  for  by  one 
of  the  parties  in  the  controversy — that  is,  were  so  many  random  contingencies  vvliich 
hid  no  parentage  in  any  events  or  influenries  that  went  before  them,  or  occupied  no 
p'a:6  in  a  train  of  causation.  Of  the  reasoners  on  the  opposite  sides  of  this  sorely 
agitated  question — the  one  contending  for  the  moral  liberty,  and  the  other  for  the 
physical  necessity  of  human  actions — it  is  clear  that  there  are  many  who  hold  the 
one  to  be  destructive  of  the  other.  But  what  the  wisdom  of  man  cannot  argumcwta- 
tively  harmonize  in  the  world  of  speculation,  the  power  and  wisdom  of  God  have 
executively  harmonized  in  the  world  of  realities — so  that  man,  on  the  one  hand,  irre- 
sistibly feels  himself  to  be  an  accountable  creature  ;  and  yet,  on  the  other,  his  doings 
are  as  much  the  subject  of  calculation  and  of  a  philosophy,  as  many  of  those  classes 
of  phenomena  in  the  material  world,  which,  fixed  and  certain  in  themselves,  are  only 
uncertain  to  us,  not  because  of  their  contingency,  but  because  of  their  complication. 
We  are  not  sure  if  the  evolutions  of  the  will  are  more  beyond  the  reach  of  prediction 
than  the  evolutions  of  the  weather.  It  is  this  union  of  the  moral  character  with  the 
historical  certainty  of  our  volitions,  which  has  proved  so  puzzling,  to  many  of  our 
controversialists  ;  but  in  proportion  to  the  difficulty  felt  by  us  in  the  adjustment  of 
these  two  elements,  should  be  our  admiration  of  that  profound  and  exquisite  skill 
which  has  mastered  the  apparent  incongruity — so  that  while  every  voluntary  action  of 
man  is,  in  point  of  reckoning,  the  subject  of  a  moral,  it  is,  in  point  of  result,  no  less 
the  subject  of  a  physical  law. 

17* 


198  MISCELLANEOUS    ADAPTATIONS. 

tory  distinct  from  our  own,  if  they  do  not  altogether  belong  to  it. 
The  relation  between  food  and  hunger,  between  the  object  and 
the  appetite,  is  an  instance  of  the  adaptation  between  external 
nature  and  man's  physical  constitution — yet  the  periodical  recur- 
rence of  the  appetite  itself,  with  its  imperious  demand  to  be 
satisfied,  viewed  as  an  impellent  to  labour  even  the  most  irksome 
and  severe,  has  an  important  effect  both  on  the  moral  constitu- 
tion of  the  individual  and  on  the  state  of  society.  The  super- 
fices  of  the  human  body,  in  having  been  made  so  exquisitely 
alive  at  every  pore  to  the  sensations  of  pain,  may  be  regard- 
ed as  nature's  defensive  covering  against  those  exposures  from 
without,  which  else  might  injure  or  destroy  it.  This  is  purely  a 
physical  adaptation,  but  it  involves  a  moral  adaptation  also  ; 
for  this  shrinking  and  sensitive  avoidance,  at  the  first  ap- 
proaches of  pain  affords  a  similar  protection  against  certain 
hazards  from  within — as  self-mutilation  in  the  moment  of  the 
spirit's  wantonness,  or  even  self-destruction  in  the  moment  of  its 
despair.  But,  without  enlarging  further  on  s})ecific  instances, 
we  shall  now  advert  to  one  subject,  furnished  by  the  history 
of  moral  science  ;  and  replete,  we  have  long  thought,  with  the 
materials  of  a  very  strong  and  comprehensive  argument. 

11.  We  have  already  adverted  to  the  objective  nature  of 
virtue,  and  the  subjective  nature  of  man,  as  forming  two  wholly 
distinct  objects  of  contemplation.  It  is  the  latter  and  not  the 
former  which  indicates  the  moral  character  of  God.  The  mere 
system  of  ethical  doctrine  is  no  more  fitted  to  supj)ly  an  argu- 
ment of  this  character,  than  would  the  system  of  geometry. 
It  is  not  geometry  in  the  abstract,  but  geometry  as  embodied 
in  the  Heavens,  or  in  the  exquisite  structures  of  the  tenes- 
trial  physics — which  bespeaks  the  skill  of  the  artificer  who 
framed  them.  In  like  manner  it  is  not  moral  science  in  the 
abstract — but  the  moral  constitution  of  beings  so  circumstanced 
and  so  made,  that  virtue  is  the  only  element  in  which  their 
permanent  individual  or  social  happiness  can  be  realized,  which 
bespeaks  the  great  Parent  of  the  human  family  to  be  Himself 
the  lover  and  the  exemplar  of  righteousness.  In  a  word,  it  is  not 
from  an  abstraction,  but  from  the  facts  of  a  creation,  that  our 
lesson  respecting  the  divine  character,  itself  a  fact,  is  to  be  learn- 
ed ;  and  it  is  by  keeping  this  distinction  in  view,  that  we  obtain 
one  important  help  for  drawing  from  the  very  conflict  and  diver- 
sity of  moral  theories  on  the  nature  of  virtue,  a  clear,  nay  a 
cumulative  argument  for  the  virtuous  nature  of  the  Godhead. 

12.  The  painful  suspicion  is  apt  to  intrude  upon  us,  that  virtue 
may  not  be  a  thing  of  any  substance  or  stability  at  all — when  we 
witness  the  confusion  and  the  controversy  into  which  moralists 


MISCELLANEOUS    ADAPTATIONS.  199 

have  fallen,  on  the  subject  of  its  elementar}'  principles.  But,  to 
allay  this  feeling,  it  should  be  observed,  in  the  first  place,  that, 
with  all  the  perplexity  which  obtains  on  the  question  of  what 
virtue,  in  the  abstract  or  in  its  own  essential  and  constituting 
quality,  is — there  is  a  pretty  general  agreement  among  moralists, 
as  to  what  the  separate  and  specific  virtues  of  the  human  cha- 
racter are.  According  to  the  selfish  system,  temperance  may 
be  a  virtue,  because  of  its  subservience  to  the  good  of  the  indi- 
vidual ;  while  by  the  system  of  utility  it  is  a  virtue,  because 
through  its  observation,  our  powers  and  services  are  kept  entire 
for  the  good  of  society.  But  again,  beside  this  controversy  which 
relates  to  the  nature  of  virtue  in  itself,  and  which  may  be  termed 
the  objective  question  in  morals — there  is  a  subjective  or  an  or- 
ganic question  which  relates,  not  to  the  existence,  but  to  the  ori- 
gin and  formation  of  the  notion  or  feeling  of  virtue  in  the  human 
mind.  The  question,  for  example,  whether  virtue  be  a  thing  of 
opinion  or  a  thing  of  sentiment,  belongs  to  this  class.  Now,  in 
regard  to  all  those  questions  which  respect  the  origin  or  the  pedi- 
gree of  our  moral  judgments,  it  should  not  be  forgotten,  that, 
while  the  controvertists  are  at  issue  upon  this,  they  are  nearly 
unanimous,  as  to  morality  itself  being  felt  by  the  mind  as  a  matter 
of  supreme  obligation.  They  dispute  about  the  moral  sense  in 
man,  or  about  the  origin  and  constitution  of  the  court  of  con- 
science ;  but  they  have  no  dispute  about  the  supreme  authority 
of  conscience — even  as,  in  questions  of  civil  polity  and  legisla- 
tion, there  may  be  no  dispute  about  the  rightful  authority  of  some 
certain  court,  while  there  may  be  antiquarian  doubts  and  differ- 
ences on  the  subject  of  its  origin  and  formation.  Dr.  Smith,  for 
example,  while  he  has  his  own  peculiar  views  on  the  origin  of 
our  moral  principles,  never  questions  their  authority.  lie  differs 
from  others,  in  regard  to  the  rationale,  or  the  anterior  steps  of 
that  process,  which  at  length  terminates  in  a  decision  of  the 
mind,  on  the  merit  or  demerit  of  a  partit  uiar  action.  The  right- 
ness  and  the  supremacy  of  that  decision  are  not  in  the  least 
doubted  by  him.  There  may  be  a  metaphysical  controversy 
about  the  mode  of  arriving  at  our  moral  judgment,  and  at  the 
same  time  a  perfect  concurrence  in  it  as  the  guide  and  the  regu- 
lator of  human  conduct — just  as  there  may  be  an  anatomical  con- 
troversy about  the  structure  of  the  eye  or  the  terminations  of  the 
optic  nerve,  and  a  perfect  confidence  with  all  parties,  in  the  cor- 
rectness of  those  intimations  which  the  eye  gives,  of  the  position 
of  external  objects  and  their  visible  properties.  By  attending  to 
this  we  obtain  a  second  important  help  for  eliciting  from  the  di- 
versity of  theories  on  the  nature  of  virtue,  a  cumulative  argument 
for  the  virtuous  nature  of  the  Godhead. 


200  MISCELLANEOUS    ADAPTATIONS. 

'  13.  When  the  conflict  then  of  its  opposing  theories,  would 
seem  to  bring  fearful  insecurity  on  moral  science,  let  it  not  be 
forgotten,  that  the  very  multitude  of  props  and  securities,  by 
which  virtue  is  upholden,  is  that  which  has  given  rise  to  the  con- 
flict. There  is  little  or  no  scepticism,  in  regard  to  the  worth  or 
substantive  being  of  morality,  but  chiefly  in  regard  to  its  sustain- 
ing principle  ;  and  it  is  because  of  so  much  to  sustain  it,  or  of 
the  many  distinct  and  firm  props  which  it  rests  upon,  that  there 
has  been  such  an  amount  of  ethical  controversy  in  the  world. 
There  has  been  many  a  combat,  and  many  a  combatant — not 
because  of  the  baselessness  of  morality,  but  because  it  rests  on 
a  basis  of  so  many  goodly  pillars,  and  because  of  such  a  varied 
convenience  and  beauty  in  the  elevation  of  the  noble  fabric. 
The  reason  of  so  much  controversy  is,  that  each  puny  contro- 
versialist, wedded  to  his  own  exclusive  view  of  an  edifice  too 
mighty  and  majestic  for  his  grasp,  has  either  selected  but  one  of 
the  upholding  props,  and  affirmed  it  to  be  the  only  support  of  the 
architecture  ;  or  attended  to  but  one  of  its  graces  and  utilities, 
and  affirmed  it  to  be  the  alone  purpose  of  the  magnificent  build- 
ing. The  argument  of  each,  whether  on  the  foundation  of  vir- 
tue or  on  its  nature,  when  beheld  aright,  will  be  found  a  distinct 
trophy  to  its  worth — for  each  can  plead  some  undoubted  excel- 
lence or  good  effect  of  virtue  in  behalf  of  his  own  theory.  Each 
may  have  so  magnified  the  property  which  himself  had  selected 
— as  that  those  properties  of  virtue  which  others  had  selected, 
were  thrown  into  the  shade,  or  at  most  but  admitted  as  humble 
attendants,  in  the  retinue  of  his  own  great  principle.  And  so 
the  controversy  is  not,  whether  morality  be  a  solidly  constituted 
fabric  ;  but  what  that  is  which  constitues  its  solidity,  and  which 
should  be  singled  out  as  the  keystone  of  the  fabric.  Each  of 
the  champions  in  this  warfare  has  fastened  on  a  different  key- 
stone ;  and  each  pushes  the  triumph  against  his  adversary  by  a 
demonstration  of  its  firmness.  Or  in  other  words,  virtue  is  com- 
passed about  with  such  a  number  of  securities,  and  possesses 
such  a  superabundance  of  strength,  as  to  have  given  room  for 
the  question  that  was  raised  about  Samson  of  old — what  that  is, 
wherein  its  great  strength  lies.  It  is  like  the  controversy  which 
sometimes  arises  about  a  building  of  perfect  symmetry — when 
sides  are  taken,  and  counter-explanations  are  advanced  and  ar- 
gued, about  the  one  characteristic  or  constituting  charm,  which 
hath  conferred  upon  it  so  much  gracefulness.  It  is  even  so  of  mo- 
rality. Each  partisan  hath  advocated  his  own  system;  and  each, 
in  doing  so,  hath  more  fully  exhibited  some  distinct  property  or 
perfection  of  moral  rectitude.  Morality  is  not  neutralized  by  this 
conflict  of  testimonies  ;  biit  rises  in  statelier  pride,  and  with  aug- 


MISCELLANEOUS    ADAPTATIONS.  201 

merited  security,  from  the  foam  and  the  turbulence  which  play 
around  its  base.     To  her  this  conflict  yields,  not  a  balance,  but 
a  summation  of  testimonies  ;  and,  instead  of  an  impaired,  it  is  a 
cumulative  argument,  that  may  be  reared  out  of  the  manifold 
controversies  to  which  she  has  given  rise.     For  when  it  is  as- 
serted by  one  party  in  the  strife,  that  the  foundation  of  all  mora- 
lity is  the  right  of  God  to  the  obedience  of  his  creatures — let 
God's  absolute  right  be  fully  conceded  to  them.     And  when 
others  reply,  that,  apart  from  such  right,  there  is  a  native  and 
essential  rightness  in  morality,  let  this  be  conceded  also.     There 
is  indeed  such  a  rightness,  which,  anterior  to  law,  hath  had  ever- 
lasting residence  in  the  character  of  the  Godhead ;  and  which 
prompted  him  to  a  law,  all  whose  enactments  bear  the  impress 
of  purest  morality.     And  when  the  advocates  of  the  selfish  sys- 
tem affirm,  that  the  good  of  self  is  the  sole  aim  and  principle  of 
virtue ;  while  we  refuse  their  theory,  let  us  at  least  admit  the 
fact  to  which  all  its  plausibility  is  owing — that  nought  conduces 
more  surely  to  happiness,  than  the  strict  observation  of  all  the 
recognized  moralities  of  human  conduct.     And  when  a  fourth 
party  affirms   that  nought  but  the  useful  is  virtuous  ;  and,  in  sup- 
port of  their  theory,  can  state  the  unvarying  tendencies  of  virtue 
in  the  world  towards  the  highest  good  of  the  human  family — let 
it  forthwith  be  granted,  that  the  same  God,  who  blends  in  his 
own  person,  both  the  rightness  of  morality  and  the  right  of  law, 
that  He  hath  so  devised  the  economy  of  things  and  so  directs 
its  processes,  as  to  make  peace  and  prosperity  follow  in  the  train 
of  righteousness.     And  when  the  position  that  virtue  is  its  own 
reward,  is  cast  as  another  dogma  into  the  whirlpool   of  debate, 
let  it  be  fondly  allowed,  that  the  God,  who  delights  in  moral  ex- 
cellence himself,  hath  made  it  the  direct  minister  of  enjoyment 
to  him,  who,  formed  after  his  own  image,  delights  in  it  also. 
And  when  others,  expatiating  on  the  beauty  of  virtue,  would 
almost  rank  it  among  the  objects  of  taste  rather  than  of  prin- 
ciple— let  this  be  followed  up  by  the  kindred  testimony,  that,  in 
all  its  exhibitions,  there  is  indeed  a  supreme  gracefulness ;  and 
that  God,  rich  and  varied  in  all  the  attestations  which  He  has 
given  of  his  regard  to  it,  hath  so  endowed  His  creatures,  that, 
in  moral  worth,  they  have  the  beatitudes  of  taste  as  well  as  the 
beatitudes  of  conscience.      And  should  there  be   philosophers 
who  say  of  morality  that  it  is  wholly  founded  upon  the  emotions 
— let  it  at  least  be  granted,  that  He  whose  hand  did  frame  our 
internal  mechanism,  has  attuned  it  in  the  most  correct  and  deli- 
cate respondency,  with  all  the  moralities  of  which  human  nature 
is  capable.     And  should  there  be  other  philosophers  who  affirm 
\  that  morality  hath  a  real  and  substantive  existence  in  the  nature 


202  MISCELLANEOUS    ADAPTATIONS. 

of  things,  so  as  to  make  it  as  much  an  object  of  judgment  dis- 
tinct from  him  who  judges,  as  are  the  eternal  and  immutable 
truths  of  geometry — let  it  with  gratitude  be  acknowledged  that 
the  mind  is  so  constituted  as  to  have  the  same  firm  hold  of  the 
moral  which  it  has  of  the  mathematical  relations ;  and  if  this 
prove  nothing  else,  it  at  least  proves,  that  the  Author  of  our  con- 
stitution hath  stamped  there,  a  clear  and  legible  impress  on  the 
side  of  virtue.     We  should  not  exclude  from  this  argument  even 
the  degrading  systems  of  Hobbes  and  Mandeville  ;  the  former 
representing  virtue  as  the  creation  of  human  policy,  and  the 
latter  representing  its  sole  principle  to  be  the  love  of  human 
praise — for  even  they  tell  thus  much,  the  one  that  virtue  is  linked 
with  the  well-being  of  the  community,  the  other  that  it  has  an 
echo  in  every  bosom.     We  would  not  dissever  all  these  testi- 
monies ;  but  bind  them  together  into  the  sum  and  strength  of  a 
cumulative  argument.      The  controversialists  have  lost  them- 
selves, but  it  is  in  a  wilderness  of  sweets — out  of  which  the  ma- 
terials might  be  gathered,  of  such  an  incense  at  the  shrine  of 
morality,  as  should  be  altogether  overpowering.      Each  party 
hath  selected  but  one  of  its  claims  ;  and,  in  the  anxiety  to  exalt 
it,  would  shed  a  comparative  obscurity  over  all  the  rest.     This 
is  the  contest  between  them — not  whether  morality  be  destitute 
of  claims  ;  but  what,  out  of  the  number  that  she  possesses,  is  the 
great  and  pre-eminent  claim  on  which  man  should  do  her  homage. 
Their  controversy  perhaps  never  may  be  settled  ;  but  to  make 
the  cause  of  virtue  suffer  on  this  account,  would  be  to  make  it 
suffer  from  the  very  force  and  abundance  of  its  recommendations. 
14.   But  this  contemplation  is  pregnant  with  another  inference, 
beside  the  worth  of  virtue — even  the  righteous  character  of  Him, 
who,  for  the  sake  of  upholding  it  hath  brought  such  a  number  of 
cantingencies  together.    When  we  look  to  the  systems  of  utility 
and  selfishness,  let  us  look  upwardly  to  Him,  through  whose 
ordination  alone  it  is,  that  virtue  hath  such  power  to  prosper  the 
arrangements  of  life  and  of  society.     Or  when  told  of  the  prin- 
ciple that  virtue  is  its  own  reward,  let  us  not  forget  Him,  who 
so  constituted  our  moral  nature,  as  to  give  the  feeling  of  an  ex- 
quisite charm,  both  in  the  possession  of  virtue  and  in  the  con- 
templation of  it.      Or  when  the  theory  of  a  moral  sense  offers 
itself  to  our  regards,  let  us  bear  regard  along  with  it  to  that  God, 
who  constructed  this  organ  of  the  inner  man,  and  endowed  it 
with  all  its  perceptions  and  all  its  feelings.     In  the  utility  where- 
with He  hath  followed  up  the  various  observations  of  moral 
rectitude  ;  in  the  exquisite  relish  which  He  hath  infused  into  the 
rectitude  itself;  in  the  law  of  conformity  thereto  which  He  hath 
written  on  the  hearts  of  all  men ;  in  the  aspect  of  eternal  and 


MISCELLANEOUS    ADAPTATIONS.  203 

unchangeable  fitness,  under  which  He  hath  made  it  manifest  to 
every  conscience — in  these,  we  behold  the  elements  of  many  a 
controversy,  on  the  nature  of  virtue  ;  but  in  these,  when  viewed 
aright,  we  also  behold  a  glorious  harmony  of  attestations  to  the 
nature  of  God.  It  is  thus  that  the  perplexities  of  the  question, 
when  virtue  is  looked  to  as  but  a  thing  of  earthly  residence,  are 
all  done  away,  when  we  carry  the  speculation  upward  to  heaven. 
They  find  solution  there ;  and  cast  a  radiance  over  the  charac- 
ter of  Him  who  hath  not  only  established  in  righteousness  His 
throne,  but,  by  means  of  a  rich  and  varied  adaptation,  hath  pro- 
fusely shed  over  the  universe  that  He  halh  formed,  the  graces 
by  which  He  would  adorn,  and  the  beatitudes  by  which  He 
would  reward  it. 

15.  Although  the  establishment  of  a  moral  theory  is  not  now 
our  proper  concern,  we  may  nevertheless  take  the  opportunity 
of  expressing  our  dissent  from  the  system  of  those,  who  would 
resolve  virtue,  not  into  any  native  or  independent  rightness  of  its 
own,  but  unto  the  will  of  Him  who  has  a  right  to  all  our  services. 
Without  disparagement  to  the  Supreme  Being,  it  is  not  His  law 
which  constitutes  virtue ;  but,  far  higher  homage  both  to  Him 
and  to  His  law,  the  law  derives  all  its  authority  and  its  being 
from  a  virtue  of  anterior  residence  in  the  character  of  the  Divi- 
nity. It  is  not  by  the  authority  of  any  law  over  Him,  that  truth 
and  justice  and  goodness  and  all  the  other  perfections  of  supreme 
moral  excellence,  have,  in  His  person,  had  their  everlasting  resi- 
dence. He  had  a  nature,  before  that  He  uttered  it  forth  into  a 
law.  Previous  to  creation,  there  existed  in  His  mind,  all  those 
conceptions  of  the  great  and  the  graceful,  which  He  hath  embo- 
died into  a  gorgeous  universe;  and  of  which  every  rude  subhmity 
of  the  wilderness,  or  every  fair  and  smiling  landscape,  gives  such 
vivid  representation.  And  in  like  manner,  previous  to  all  go- 
vernment, there  existed  in  His  mind,  those  principles  of  righ- 
teousness, which  afterwards,  with  the  right  of  an  absolute  sove- 
reign. He  proclaimed  into  a  law.  Those  virtues  of  which  we 
now  read  on  a  tablet  of  jurisprudence  were  all  transcribed  and 
taken  off  from  the  previous  tablet  of  the  divine  character.  The 
law  is  but  a  reflection  of  this  character.  In  the  fashioning  of 
this  law.  He  pictured  forth  Himself;  and  we,  in  the  act  of  ob- 
serving His  law,  are  only  conforming  ourselves  to  His  hkeness. 
It  is  there  that  we  are  to  look  for  the  primeval  seat  of  moral 
goodness.  Or,  in  other  words,  virtue  has  an  inherent  character 
of  her  own — apart  from  law,  and  anterior  to  all  jurisdiction. 

16.  Yet  the  right  of  God  to  command,  and  the  rightness  of 
His  commandments,  are  distinct  elements  of  thought,  and 
should  not  be  merged  into  one  another.     We  should  not  lose 


204  MISCELLANEOUS    ADAPTATIONS. 

sight  of  the  individuahty  of  each,  nor  identify  these  two  things— 
because,  instead  of  antagonists,  they  do  in  fact  stand  side  by 
side,  and  act  together  in  friendly  co-operation.  Because  two 
influences  are  conjoined  in  agency,  that  is  no  reason  why  they 
should  be  confounded  in  thought.  Their  union  does  not  con- 
stitute their  unity — and  though,  in  the  conscience  of  man,  there 
be  an  approbation  of  all  rectitude  ;  and  all  rectitude,  be  an  obh- 
gation  laid  upon  the  conduct  of  man  by  the  divine  law — yet  still, 
the  approbation  of  man's  moral  nature  is  one  thing,  and  the  obli- 
gation of  God's  authority  is  another. 

17.  That  there  is  an  approval  of  rectitude,  apart  from  all  legal 
sanctions  and  legal  obligations,  there  is  eternal  and  unchangea- 
ble demonstration  in  the  character  of  God  Himself  He  is  under 
no  law,  and  owns  the  authority  of  no  superior.  It  is  not  by  the 
force  of  sanctions,  but  by  the  force  of  sentiments  that  the  divi 
nity  is  moved.  Morality  with  Him  is  not  of  prescription,  but 
of  spontaneous  principle  alone  ;  and  He  acts  virtuously,  not  be- 
cause He  is  bidden ;  but  because  virtue  hath  its  inherent  and 
eternal  residence  in  His  own  nature.  Instead  of  deriving  mo- 
rality from  law,  we  should  derive  law,  even  the  law  of  God,  from 
the  primeval  morality  of  His  own  character ;  and  so  far  from 
looking  upwardly  to  His  law  as  the  fountain  of  morality,  do  we 
hold  it  to  be  the  emanation  from  a  higher  fountain  that  is  seated 
in  the  depths  of  His  unchangeable  essence,  and  is  eternal  as  the 
nature  of  the  Godhead. 

18.  The  moral  hath  antecedency  over  the  juridical,  God  acts 
righteously,  not  because  of  jurisdiction  by  another,  but  because 
of  a  primary  and  independent  justice  in  Himself.  It  was  not 
law  which  originated  the  moralities  of  the  divine  character  ;  but 
these  morahties  are  self-existent  and  eternal  as  is  the  being  of 
the  Godhead.  The  virtues  had  all  their  dwelling-place  in  the 
constitution  of  the  Divinity — ere  He  stamped  the  impress  of 
them  on  a  tablet  of  jurisprudence.  There  was  an  inherent,  be- 
fore there  was  a  preceptive  morality ;  and  righteousness,  and 
goodness,  and  truth,  which  all  are  imperative  enactments  of  law, 
were  all  prior  characteristics,  in  the  underived  and  uncreated 
excellence  of  the  Lawgiver. 


CHAPTER  X. 

On  the  capaciiies  of  the  WoyM  for  making  a  virtuous  Species 
happy ;  and  the  Argument  deducible  from  this,  both  for  the 
Character  of  God,  and  the  Immortality  of  Man. 

1.  We  have  already  stated  the  distinction,  between  the  theology 
of  those,  who  would  make  the  divine  goodness  consist  of  all  mo- 
ral excellence  ;  and  of  those,  who  would  make  it  consist  of  be- 
nevolence alone.  Attempts  have  been  made  to  simplify  the 
science  of  morals,  by  the  reduction  of  its  various  duties  or  obli- 
gations into  one  element — as  when  it  is  alleged,  that  the  virtu- 
ousness  of  every  separate  morality  is  reducible  into  benevolence, 
which  is  regarded  as  the  central,  or  as  the  great  master  and 
generic  virtue  that  is  comprehensive  of  them  all.  There  is  a 
theoretic  beauty  in  this  imagination — yet  it  cannot  be  satisfac- 
torily established,  by  all  our  powers  of  moral  or  mental  analysis. 
We  cannot  rid  ourselves  of  the  obstinate  impression,  that  there  is 
a  distinct  and  native  virtuousness,  both  in  truth  and  in  justice, 
apart  from  their  subserviency  to  the  good  of  men  ;  and  accord- 
ingly, in  the  ethical  systems  of  all  our  most  orthodox  expounders, 
they  are  done  separate  homage  to — as  virtues  standing  forth  in 
their  own  independent  character,  and  having  their  own  indepen- 
dent claims  both  on  the  reverence  and  observation  of  mankind. 
Now,  akin  witli  this  attempt  to  generalize  the  whole  of  virtue 
into  one  single  morality,  is  the  attempt  to  generalize  the  character 
of  God  into  one  single  moral  perfection.  Truth  and  justice  have 
been  exposed  to  the  same  treatment,  in  the  one  contemplation 
as  in  the  other — that  is,  regarded  more  as  derivatives  from  the 
higher  characteristic  of  benevolence,  than  as  distinct  and  primary 
characteristics  themselves.  The  love  of  philosophic  simplicity 
may  have  led  to  this  in  the  abstract  or  moral  question ;  but 
something  more  has  operated  in  the  theological  question.  It  falls 
in  with  a  still  more  urgent  affection  than  the  taste  of  man  ;  it  falls 
in  with  his  hope  and  his  sense  of  personal  interest,  that  the  truth 
and  justice  of  the  Divinity  should  be  removed,  as  it  were,  to  the 
back-ground  of  his  perspective.  And  accordingly,  this  inclina- 
tion to  soften,  if  not  to  suppress,  the  sterner  affections  of  righ- 
teousness and  holiness,  appears,  not  merely  in  the  pleasing  and 
poetic  effusions  of  the  sentimental,  but  also  in  the  didactic  expo- 
sitions of  the  academic  theism.  It  is  thus  that  Paley,  so  full  and 
effective,  and  able  in  his  demonstrations  of  the  natural,  is  yet  so 
18 


206  THE    CAPACITIES    OF    THE    WORLD    FOR 

meagre  in  his  demonstrations  of  the  moral  attributes.     It  is,  in 
truth,  the  general  defect,  not  of  natural  theology  in  itself — but  of 
natural  theology,  as  set  forth  at  the  termination  of  ethical  courses, 
or  as  expounded  in  the  schools.     In  this  respect,  the   natural 
theology  of  the  heart,  is  at  variance,  with  the  natural  theology  of 
our  popular  and  prevailing  literature.     The  one  takes  its  lesson 
direct  from  conscience,  which  depones  to  the  authority  of  truth 
and  justice,  as  distinct  from  benevolence  ;  and  carries  this  lesson 
upwards,  from  that  tablet  of  virtue  which  it  reads  on  the  nature  of 
man  below,  to  that  higher  tablet  upon  which  it  reads  the  character 
of  God  above.     The  other  again,  of  more  lax  and  adventurous 
speculation,  would  fain  amalgamate  all  the  qualities  of  the  God- 
head into  one  ;  and  would  make  that  one  the  beautiful  and  undis- 
tinguishing  quality  of  tenderness.     It  would  sink  the  venerable 
or  the  awful  into  the  lovely  ;  and  to  this  it  is  prompted,  not  merely 
for  the  sake  of  theoretic  simplicity — but  in  order  to  quell  the 
alarms  of  nature,  the  dread  and  the  disturbance  which  sinners  feel, 
when  they  look  to  their  sovereign  in  heaven,  as  a  God  of  judg- 
ment and  of  unspotted  holiness.     Nevertheless  the  same  con- 
science which  tells  what  is  sound  in  ethics,  is  ever  and  anon  sug- 
gesting what  is  sound  in  theology — that  we  have  to  do  with  a 
God  of  truth,  that  we  have  to  do  with  a  God  of  righteousness  ; 
and  this  lesson  is  never  perhaps  obliterated  in  any  breast,  by  the 
imagery,  however  pleasing,  of  a  universal  parent,  throned  in  soft 
and  smiling  radiance,  and  whose  supreme  delight  is  to  scatter 
beatitudes   innumerable  through  a  universal  family.     We  cannot 
forget,  although  we  would,  that  justice  and  judgment  are  the 
habitation  of  His  throne ;   and  that  His  dwelling-place  is  not  a 
mere  blissful  elysium  or  paradise  of  sweets,  but  an  august  and 
inviolable  sanctuary.     It  is  an  elysium,  but  only  to  the  spirits  of 
the  holy ;  and  this  sacredness,  we  repeat,  is  immediately  forced 
upon  the  consciousness  of  every  bosom,  by  the  moral  sense  which 
is  within  it — however  fearful  a  topic  it  may  be  of  recoil   to  the 
sinner,  and  of  reticence  in  the    demonstrations  of  philosophy. 
The  sense  of  heaven's  sacredness  is  not  a  superstitious  fear.     It 
is  the  instant  suggestion  of  our  moral  nature.     What  conscience 
apprehends  virtue  to  be  in  itself,  that  also  it  will  apprehend  virtue 
to  be  in  the  Author  of  conscience  ;  and  if  truth  and  justice  be 
constituent  elements  in  the  one,  these  it  will  regard  as  constituent 
elements  in  the  other  also.     It  is  by  learning  direct  of  God  from 
the  phenomena  of  human  conscience  ;  or  taking  what  it  tells  us 
to  be  virtues  in  themselves,  for  the  very  virtues  of  the  Godhead, 
realized  in  actual  and  living  exemplification  upon  His  character 
— it  is  thus  that  we  escape  from  the  illusion  of  poetical  religion- 
ists, who,  in  the  insense  which  they  offer  to  the  benign  virtues 


MAKING    A    VIRTUOUS    SPECIES    HAPPY.  207 

of  the  parent,  are  so  apt  to  overlook  the  virtue.^  of  the  Lawgiver 
and  Judge. 

2.   When  we  take  this  fuller  view  of  God's  moral  nature — 
when  we  make  account  of  the  righteousness  as  well  as  the  bene- 
volence— when  we  yield  to  the  suggestion  of  our  own  hearts,  that 
to  Him  belongs  the  sovereign  state,  and,  if  needful,  the  severity 
of  the  lawgiver,  as  well  as  the  fond  affection  of  the  parent — when 
we  assign  to  Him  the  character,  which,  instead  of  but  one  virtue, 
is  comprehensive  of  them  all — wc   are  then  on  firmer  vantage- 
ground  for  the  establishment  of  a  natural  Theology,  in  harmony, 
both  with  the  lessons  of  conscience,  and  with  the  phenomena  of 
the  external  world.      Many  of  our  academic  theists  have  greatly 
crippled  theii*  argument,  by  confining  themselves  to  but  one  fea- 
ture in  the  character  of  the  Divinity — as  if  His   only  wish  in  re- 
ference to  the  creatures  that  He  had  made,was  a  wish  for  their 
happiness;   or  as  if,  instead  of  the  subjects  of  a  righteous   and 
moral  government,  they  were  but  the  nurslings  of  His  tenderness. 
They  have  exiled  and  put  forth  every  thing  like  jurisprudence 
from  the  relation  in  which  God  stands  to  man  ;  and  by  giving  the 
foremost  place  in  their  demonstrations  to  the  mere  beneficence 
of  the  Deity,  they  have  made  the   difficulties  of  the  subject  far 
more  perplexing  and  unresolvable  than  they  needed  to  have  been. 
For  with   benevolence  alone  we    cannot  even   extenuate  and 
much  less  extricate  ourselves,  from  the  puzzling  difficulty  of 
those  physical  sufferings  to  which  the  sentient  creation,  as  far  as 
our  acquaintance  extends  with  it,  is  universally  liable.     It  is  only 
by  admitting  the  sanctities  along  with  what  may  be  termed  the 
humanities  of  the  divine  character,  that  this  enigma  can  be  at 
all  alleviated.     Whereas,  if,  apart  from  the  equities  of  a  moral 
government,  we  look  to  God  in  no  other  light,  than  mere  taste- 
ful and  sentimental  religionists  do,  or  as  but  a  benign  and  indul- 
gent  Father  whose  sole  delight  is  the  happiness  of  his  family — 
there  are  certain  stubborn  anomalies  which  stand  in  the  way  of 
this  frail   imagination,  and  would  render  the  whole    subject  a 
hopeless  and  utterly  intractable  mystery. 

3.  A  specimen  of  the  weakness  which  attaches  to  the  system 
of  Natural  Theology,  when  the  infinite  benevolence  of  the  Deity 
is  the  only  element  which  it  will  admit  into  its  explanations  and 
Its  reasonings,  is  the  manner  in  which  its  advocates  labour  to 
dispose  of  the  numerous  ills,  wherewith  the  world  is  infested. 
They  have  recourse  to  arithmetic — balancing  the  phenomena  on 
each  side  of  the  question,  as  they  would  the  columns  of  a  ledger. 
They  institute  respective  summations  of  the  good  and  the  evil ; 
and  by  the  preponderance  of  the  former  over  the  latter,  hold  the 
difli^"!ty  <o  b^  resolved.     The  comnutation  is  neither   a  sure 


208 


THE    CAPACITIES    OF    THE    WOKLD    FOR 


nor  an  easy  one  ;  but  even  under  the  admission  of  its  justness, 
it  remains  an  impracticable  puzzle — why  under  a  Being  of  infinite 
power  and  infinite  benevolence,  there  should  be  suffering  at  all. 
This  is  an  enigma  which  the  single  attribute  of  benevolence 
cannot  unriddle,  or  rather  the  very  enigma  which  it  has  created 
— nor  shall  we  even  approximate  to  the  solution  of  it,  without  the 
aid  of  other  attributes  to  help  the  explanation. 

4.  It  is  under  the  pressure  of  these  difficulties  that  refuge  is 
taken  in  the  imagination  of  a  future  state — where  it  is  assumed 
that  all  the  disorders  of  the  present  scene  are  to  be  repaired,  and 
full  compensation  made  for  the  sufferings  of  our  earthly  existence. 
It  is  affirmed,  that  although  the  body  dies  the  soul  is  unperish- 
able,  and,  after  it  hath  burst  its  unfettered  way  from  the  prison- 
house  of  its  earthly  tabernacle,  that  it  will  expatiate  forever  in 
the  full  buoyancy  and  delight  of  its  then  emancipated  energies — 
that,  even  as  from  the  lacerated  shell  of  the  inert  chrysalis  the 
winged  insect  rises  in  all  the  pride  of  its  now  expanded  beauty 
among  the  fields  of  light  and  ether  v/hich  are  above  it,  so  the 
human  spirit  finds  its  way  through  the  opening  made  by  death 
upon  its  corporeal  framework  among  the  glories  of  the  upper 
Elysium.  It  is  this  immortality  which  is  supposed  to  unriddle 
all  the  difficulties  that  attach  to  our  present  condition ;  which 
converts  the  evil  that  is  in  the  world,  into  the  instrument  of  a 
greatly  over-passing  good ;  and  affords  a  scene  for  the  imagina- 
tion to  rest  upon,  where  all  the  anomalies  which  now  exercise 
us  shall  be  rectified,  and  where,  from  the  larger  prospects  we 
shall  then  have  of  the  whole  march  and  destiny  of  man,  the  ways 
of  God  to  His  creatures  shall  appear  in  all  the  lustre  of  their  full 
and  noble  vindication. 

5.  But  as  the  superiority  of  the  happiness  over  the  misery  of 
the  world,  affords  insufficient  premises  on  which  to  conclude  the 
benevolence  of  God,  so  long  as  God  is  conceived  of  imder  the 
partial  view  of  possessing  hut  this  as  his  alone  moral  attrihute — 
when  that  benevolence  is  employed  as  the  argument  for  some 
ulterior  doctrine  in  Natural  Theology,  it  must  impart  to  this 
latter  the  same  inconclusiveness  by  which  itself  is  characterized. 
The  proof  and  the  thing  proved  must  be  alike  strong  or  alike 
weak.  If  the  excess  of  enjoyment  over  suffering  in  the  life  that 
now  is,  be  a  matter  of  far  too  doubtful  calculation,  on  which  to 
rest  a  confident  inference  in  favour  of  the  divine  benevolence ; 
then,  let  this  benevolence  have  no  other  prop  to  lean  upon,  and 
in  its  turn,  it  is  far  too  doubtful  a  premise,  on  which  to  infer  a 
coming  immortality.  Accordingly,  to  help  out  the  argument, 
many  of  our  slender  and  sentimental  theists,  who  will  admit  of 
no  other  moral  attribute  for  the  divinity,  than  the  paternal  attri- 


MAKING    A    VIRTUOUS    SPECIES    HAPPY.  209 

biite  of  kind  affection  for  the  creatures  who  have  sprung  from 
Him  do,  in  fact,  assume  the  thing  to  be  proved,  and  reason  in  a 
circle.     The  mere  bahmce  of  the  pleasures  and  pains  of  the 
present  life,  is  greatly  too  uncertain,  for  what  may  be  called  an 
initial  footing  to  this  argument.     But  let  a  future  life  be  assumed, 
in  which  all  the  defects  and  disorders  of  the  present  are  to  be 
repaired  ;  and  this  may  reconcile  the  doctrine  of  the  benevolence 
of  God,  with  the  otherwise  stumbling  fact  of  the  great  actual 
wretchedness  that  is  now  in  the  world.     Out  of  the  observed 
phenomena   of  life  and   an   assumed    immortality  together,  a 
tolerable  argument  may  be  raised  for  this  most  pleasing  and 
amiable  of  all  the  moral  characteristics  ;  but  it  is  obvious  that 
the  doctrine  of  immortality  enters  into  the  premises  of  this  first 
argument.     But  how  is  the  immortality  itself  proved  ?  not  by  the 
phenomena  of  life  alone,  but  by  these  phenomena  taken  in  con- 
junction with  tbe  divine  benevolence — which  benevolence,  there- 
fore, enters  into  the  premise  of  the  second  argument.     In  the 
one  argument,  the  doctrine  of  immortality  is  required  to  prove 
the  benevolence  of  God.     In  the  other  this  benevolence  is  re- 
quired to  prove  the  immortality.     Fiach  is  used  as  an  assumption 
for  tlie  establishment  of  the  other  ;  and  this  nullifies  the  reason- 
ing for  both.     Either  of  these  terms — that  is,  the  divine  benevo- 
lence, or  a  future  state  of  compensation  for  the  evils  and  in- 
equalities of  the  present  one — either  of  them,  if  admitted,  may  be 
held  a  very  sufficient,  or,  at  least,  likely  consideration  on  which 
to  rest  the  other.     But  it  makes  very  bad  reasoning  to  vibrate 
between  both — first  to  go  forth  with  the  assumption  that  God  is 
benevolent,  and  therefore  it  is  impossible  that  a  scene  so  dark 
and  disordered  as  that  immediately  before  us  can  offer  to  our 
contemplation  the  full  and  final  developement  of  all  his  designs 
for  the  human  family  ;   and  then,  feeling  that  this  scene  does  not 
afford  a  sulTicient  basis  on  which  to  rest  the  demonstration  of  this 
attribute,  to  strengthen  the  basis  and  make  it  broader  by  iho 
assertion,  that  it  is  not  from  a  part  of  His  ways,  but  from  their 
complete  and  comprehensive  whole,  as  made  up  both  of  time  and 
eternity,  that  we  draw  the  inference  of  a  benevolent  Deity.    There 
is  no  march  of  argument.     We  swing  as  it  were  between  two 
assumptions.      It  is  like  one  of  those  cases  in  geometry,  which 
remains  indeterminate  for  the  want  of  data.     And  the  only  effec- 
tual method  of  being  extricated  from  such  an  ambiguity,  would 
be  the  satisfactory  assurance  either  of  a  benevolence  independent 
of  all  considerations  of  immortality,  or  of  an  immortality  inde- 
pendent of  all  the  considerations  of  the  benevolence. 

6.   But  then  it  should  be  recollected  that  it  is  the  partiality  of 
our  contemplation,  and  it  alone  which  incapacitates  this  wholg^ 
18* 


.  210  tHE    CAPACITIES    OF    THE .  WORLD    FOR 

argument.     There  is  a  sickly  religion  of  taste  which  clings  ex- 
clusively to  the  parental  benevolence  of  God  ;  and  will  not,  cannot 
brave  the  contemplation  of  His  righteousness.     It  is  this  which 
makes  the  reasoning  as  feeble,  as  the  sentiment  is  flimsy.     It, 
in  fact,  leaves  the  system  of  natural  theology  without  a  ground- 
work— first  to  argue  for  immortality  on  the  doubtful  assumption 
of  a  supreme  benevolence,  and  then  to  argue  this  immortality  in 
proof  of  the  benevolence.     The  whole  fabric,  bereft  of  argument 
and  strength,  is  ready  to  sink  under  the  weight  of  unresolved  dif- 
ficulties.    The  mere  benevolence  of  the  Deity  is  not  so  obvi- 
ously or  decisively  the  lesson  of  surrounding  phenomena,  as,  of 
itself  to  be  the  foundation  of  a  solid  inference  regarding  either 
the  character  of  God  or  the  prospects  of  man.     If  we  would 
receive  the  full  lesson — if  we  would  learn  all  which  these  phe- 
nomena, when  rightly  and  attentively  regarded,  are  capable  of 
teaching — if  along  with  the  present  indications  of  a  benevolence, 
we  take  the  present  indications  of  a  righteousness  in  God — out 
of  these  blended  characteristics,  we  should  have  materials  for  an 
argument  of  firmer  texture.     It  is  to  the  leaving  out  of  certain 
data,  even  though  placed  within  the  reach  of  observation,  that  '^ 
the  infirmity  of  the  argument  is  ov/ing — whereas,  did  we  employ 
aright  all  the  data  in  our  possession,  we  might  incorporate  them 
together  into  the  solid  ground-work  of  a  solid  reasoning.     It  is 
by  our  sensitive  avoidance  of  certain  parts  in  this  contemplation, 
that  we  enfeeble  the  cause.     We  should  find  a  stable  basis  in 
existing  appearances,  did  we  give  them  a  fair  and  full  inter- 
pretation— as  indicating  not  only  the  benevolence  of  God,  but, 
both  by  the  course  of  nature  and  the  laws  of  man's  moral  economy, 
indicating  his  love  of  righteousness  and  haired  of  iniquity.     It 
might  not  resolve,  but  it  would  alleviate  the  mystery  of  things, 
could  we  within  the  sphere  of  actual  observation,  collect  notices, 
not  merely  of  a  God  who  rejoiced  in  the  physical  happiness  of 
His  creatures,  but  of  a  God  who  had  respect  unto  their  virtue. 
Now  the   great  evidence  for   this  latter  characteristic   of  the 
Divinity,  lies  near  at  hand — even  among  the  intimacies  of  our 
own  felt  and  familiar  nature.     It  is  not  fetched  by  imagination 
from   a  distance,  for  every  man  has  it  within  himself.      The 
supremacy  of  conscience  is   a  fact  or  phenomenon  of  man's 
moral  constitution ;  and  from  this  law  of  the  heart,  we  pass,  by 
direct  and  legitimate  inference,  to  the  character  of  Him  who 
established  it  there.     In  a  law,  we  read  the  character  of  the 
law-giver ;  and  this,  whether  it  be  a  felt  or  a  written  law.     We 
learn  from  the  phenomena  of  conscience,  that,  however  God 
may  will  the  happiness  of  his  creatures,  His   paramount  and 
f  eremptory  demand  is  for  their  virtue.     He  is  the  moral  gover- 


MAKING    A    VIRTUOUS    SPECIES    HAPPV.  211 

nor  of  a  kingdom,  as  well  as  the  father  of  a  family ;  and  it  is  a 
partial  view  that  we  take  of  Him,  unless,  along  with  the  kindness 
which  belongs  to  Him  as  a  parent,  we  have  respect  unto  that 
authority  which  belongs  to  Him  as  a  sovereign  and  a  judge.  We 
have  direct  intimation  of  this  in  our  own  bosoms,  in  the  constant 
assertion  which  is  made  there  on  the  side  of  virtue,  in  the  dis- 
comfort and  remorse  which  attend  its  violation. 

7.  But  though  conscience  be  our  original  and  chief  instructor 
in  the  righteousness  of  God,  the  same  lesson  may  be  learned  in 
another  way.  It  may  be  gathered  Irom  the  phenomena  of  hu- 
man life — even  those  very  phenomena,  which  so  perplex  the 
mind,  so  long  as  in  quest  of  but  one  attribute  and  refusing  to 
admit  the  evidence  or  even  entertain  the  notion  of  any  other, — 
it  cherishes  a  partial  and  prejudiced  view  of  the  Deity.  Those 
theists,  who,  in  the  spirit,  have  attempted  to  strike  a  balance 
between  the  pleasures  and  the  pains  of  sentient  nature,  and  to 
ground  thereupon  the  very  doubtful  inference  of  the  divine 
benevolence — seldom  or  never  think  of  connecting  these  plea- 
sures and  pains  with  the  moral  causes,  which,  whether  proxi- 
mately or  remotely,  go  before  them.  Without  adverting  to 
these,  they  rest  their  conclusion  on  the  affirmed  superiority,  how- 
ever ill  or  uncertainly  made  out,  of  the  physical  enjoyments  over 
the  physical  sufferings  of  life.  Now  we  hold  it  of  capital  im- 
portance in  this  argument,  that,  in  our  own  species  at  least,  both 
these  enjoyments  and  these  sufferings  are  mainly  resolvable  into 
moral  causes — insomuch  that,  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases,  the 
deviation  from  happiness,  can  be  traced  to  an  anterior  deviation 
from  virtue  ;  and  that,  apart  from  death  and  accident  and  una- 
voidable disease,  the  wretchedness  of  humanity  is  due  to  a 
vicious  and  ill  regulated  morale.  When  we  thus  look  to  the  ills 
of  life  in  their  immediate  origin,  though  it  may  not  altogether  dis- 
sipate, it  goes  far  to  reduce,  and  even  to  explain  the  mystery  of 
their  existence.  Those  evils  which  vex  and  agitate  man,  ema- 
nate, in  the  great  amount  of  them,  from  the  fountain  of  his  own 
heart ;  and  come  forth,  not  of  a  distempered  material,  but  of  a 
distempered  moral  economy.  Were  each  separate  infelicity  re- 
ferred to  its  distinct  source,  we  should,  generally  speaking,  arrive 
at  some  moral  perversity,  whether  of  the  affections  or  of  the  tem- 
per— so  that  but  for  the  one,  the  other  would  not  have  been 
realized.  It  is  true,  that,  perhaps  in  every  instance,  some  ex- 
ternal cause  may  be  assigned,  for  any  felt  annoyance  to  which 
our  nature  is  liable  ;  but  then,  it  is  a  cause  without,  operating  on 
a  sensibility  within.  So  that  in  all  computations,  whether  of  suf- 
fering or  of  enjoyment,  the  state  of  the  subjective  or  recipient 
mind  must  be  taken  into  account,  as  well  as  the  influences  which 


212  THE    CAPACITIES    OF    THE    WORLD    FOR 

play  upon  it  from  the  surrounding  world  ;  and  what  we  affirm  is, 
that,  to  a  rightly  conditioned  mind,  the  misery  would  be  reduced 
and  the  happiness  augmented  tenfold.     When  disappointment 
agonizes  the  heart ;  or  a  very  slight,  perhaps  unintentional  ne- 
glect, hghts  up  in  many  a  soul  the  fierceness  of  resentment ;  or 
coldness,  and  disdain,  and  the  mutual  glances  of  contempt  and 
hatred,   circulate  a  prodigious   mass   of  infelicity  through   the 
world — these  are  to  be  ascribed,  not  to  the  untowardness  of  out- 
ward circumstances,  but  to  the  untowardness  of  man's  own  con- 
stitution,  and  are  the  fruits  of  a  disordered  spiritual  system. 
And  the  sam.e  may  be  said  of  the  poverty  which  springs  from 
indolence  or  dissipation ;   of  the  disgrace  v/hich  comes  on  the 
back  of  misconduct ;  of  the  pain  or  uneasiness  which  festers  in 
every  heart  that  is  the  prey,  whether  of  licentious  or  malignant 
passions  ;  in  short,  of  the  general  restlessness  and  unhingement 
of  every  spirit,  which,  thrown  adrift  from  the  restraints  of  prin- 
ciple, has  no  well-spring  of  satisfaction  in  itself,  but  precariously 
vacillates,  in  regard  to  happiness,  with  the  hazard  and  the  ca- 
sual fluctuation  of  outward  things.     There  are,  it  is  true,  sufler- 
ings  purely  physical,  which  belong  to  the  sentient  and  not  to  the 
moral   nature — as  the  maladies  of  infant  disease,  and  the  acci- 
dental inflictions  wherewith  the   material   frame   is  sometimes 
agonized.      Still  it  will  be  found,  that  the  vast  amount  of  human 
wretchedness,  can  be  directly  referred  to  the  waywardness  and 
morbid  state  of  the  human  will — to  the  cliaracter  of  man,  and 
not  to  the  condition  which  he  occupies. 

8.  Now  what  is  the  legitimate  argument  for  the  character  of 
God,  not  from  the  mere  existence  of  misery,  but  from  the  exist- 
ence of  misery  thus  originated?  Wretchedness,  of  itself,  were 
fitted  to  cast  an  unceitainty,  even  a  suspicion,  on  the  benevo- 
lence of  God.  But  v/retchcdness  as  the  result  of  wickedness, 
may  not  indicate  the  negation  of  this  one  attribute.  It  may  only 
indicate  the  reality  or  the  presence  of  another.  Suflering  with- 
out a  cause  and  without  an  object,  may  be  the  infliction  of  a  ma- 
lignant being.  But  suffering  in  alliance  v.ith  sin,  should  lead  to 
a  very  different  conclusion.  When  thus  related  it  may  cast  no 
impeachment  on  the  benevolence,  and  only  bespeak  the  righ- 
teousness of  God.  It  tells  us  that  however  much  He  may  love 
the  happiness  of  His  creatures,  lie  loves  their  virtue  mere.  So 
that,  instead  of  extinguishing  the  evidence  of  one  perfection,  it 
may  leave  this  evidence  entire,  and  bring  out  into  open  manifes- 
tation another  perfection  of  the  Godhead. 

9.  In  attempting  to  form  our  estimate  of  the  divine  character 
from  the  existing  phenomena,  the  fair  proceeding  would  be,  not 
to  found  it  on  the  actual  miseries  which  abound  in  the  world, 


,  MAKING    A    VIRTUOUS    SPECIES    HAPPY.  213 

I 

I    peopled  with  a  depraved  species — but  on  the  fitnesses  which 
abound  in  the  world,  to  make  a  virtuous  species  happy.     We 
should  try  to  figure  its  result  on  human  life,  were  perfect  virtue 
to  revisit  earth,  and  take  up  its  abode  in  every  family.     The 
question  is,  are  we  so  constructed  and  so  accommodated,  that, 
in  the  vast  majority  of  cases  we,  if  morally  right,  should  be  phy- 
sically happy.     What,  we  should  ask,   is  the  real  tendency  of 
nature's  laws — whether  to  minister  enjoyment  to  the  good  or 
the  evil  ?     It  were  a  very  strong,  almost  an  unequivocal  testi- 
mony to  the  righteousness  of  Him,  who  framed  the  system  of 
things  and  all  its  adaptations — if,  while  it  secured  a  general  har- 
mony between  the  virtue  of  mankind   and  their  happiness   or 
peace,   it  as  constantly  impeded   either    the   prosperity  or  the 
heart's  ease  of  the  profligate  and  the  lawless.     Now  of  this  we 
might  be  informed  by  an  actual  survey  of  human  life.     We  can 
justly  imagine  the  consequences  upon  human  society — were 
perfect  uprightness  and  sympathy  and  good-will  to  obtain  uni- 
versally ;  were  every  man  to  look  to  his  fellow  with  a  brother's 
eye ;  were  a  universal  courteousness  to  reign  in  our  streets  and 
our  houses  and  our  market-places,  and  this  to  be  the  sponta- 
neous emanation  of  a  universal  cordiality ;   were  each  man's  in- 
terest and   reputation  as  safe  in  the  custody  of  another,  as  he 
now  strives  to  make  them  by  a  jealous  guardianship  of  his  own  ; 
were,  on  the  one  hand,  a  prompt  and  eager  benevolence  on  the 
part  of  the  rich,  ever  on  the  watch  to  meet,  nay,  to  overpass  all 
the  wants  of  humanity,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  an  honest  mode- 
ration and  independence  on  the  part  of  the  poor,  to  be  a  full  de- 
fence for  their  superiors  against  the  encroachments  of  deceit  and 
rapacity  ;  were  liberaUty  to  walk  diffusively  abroad  among  men, 
and  love  to  settle  pure  and  unruflled  in  the  bosom  of  families ; 
^vere  that  moral  sunshine  to  arise  in  every  heart,  which  purity 
and  innocence  and  kind  affection  are  ever  sure  to  kindle  there ; 
and   even  when    some   visitation  from  without  was   in  painful 
dissonance  with  the  harmony  within,  were  a  thousand  sweets 
ready  to  be  poured  into  the  cup  of  tribulation  from  the  feeling 
and  the  friendship  of  all  the  good  who  were  around  us — on  this 
single  transition  from  vice  to  virtue  among  men,  does  there  not 
hinge  the  alternative  between  a  pandaemonium  and  a  paradise  ? 
If  the  moral  elements  were  in  place  and  operation  among  us, 
should  we  still  continue  to  fester  and  be  unhappy  from  the  want 
of  the  physical  ?     Or,  is  it  not  rather  true,  that  all  nature  smiles 
in  beauty,  or  wantons  in  bounteousness  for  our  enjoyment — 
were  but  the  disease  of  our  spirits  medicated,  were  there  but 
moral  soundness  in  the  heart  of  man  ! 

10.  And  what  must  be  the  character  of  the  Being  who  formed 


214  THE    CAPACITIES    OF    THE    WORLD    FOR 

such  a  world,  where  the  moral  and  the  physical  economies  are 
so  adjusted  to  each  other,  that  virtue,  if  universal,  would  bring 
ten  thousand  blessings  and  beatitudes  in  its  train,  and  turn  our 
earth  into  an  elysium — whereas  nothing  so  distempers  the  hu- 
man spirit,  and  so  multiplies  distress  in  society,  as  the  vice  and 
the  violence  and  the  varieties  of  moral  turpitude  wherewith  it  is 
infested.  Would  a  God  who  loved  iniquity  and  who  hated  righ- 
teousness have  created  such  a  world?  Would  He  have  so  at- 
tuned the  organism  of  the  human  spirit,  that  the  consciousness 
of  worth  should  be  felt  through  all  its  recesses,  like  the  oil  of 
gladness  ]  Or  would  He  have  so  constructed  the  mechanism  of 
human  society,  that  it  should  never  work  prosperously  for  the 
general  good  of  the  species,  but  by  means  of  truth  and  philan- 
thropy and  uprightness  1  Would  the  friend  and  patron  of  false- 
hood have  let  such  a  world  out  of  his  hands]  Or  would  an  un- 
holy being  have  so  fashioned  the  heart  of  man — that,  wayward 
and  irresolute  as  he  is,  he  never  feels  so  ennobled,  as  by  the 
high  resolve  that  would  spurn  every  base  allurement  of  sensuality 
away  from  him  ;  and  never  breathes  so  etherially,  as  when  he 
maintains  that  chastity  of  spirit  which  would  recoil  even  from  one 
unhallowed  imagination ;  and  never  rises  to  such  a  sense  of 
grandeur  and  godlike  elevation,  as  when  principle  hath  taken  the 
direction,  and  is  vested  with  full  ascendency  over  the  restrained 
and  regulated  passions  ?  What  other  inference  can  be  drawn  from 
such  sequences  as  these,  but  that  our  moral  architect  loves  the 
virtue  He  thus  follows  up  with  the  delights  of  a  high  and  gene- 
rous complacency ;  and  execrates  the  vice  He  thus  follows  up 
with  disgust  and  degradation  1  If  we  look  but  to  misery  uncon- 
nected and  alone,  we  may  well  doubt  the  benevolence  of  the 
Deity.  But  should  it  not  modify  the  conclusion,  to  have  ascer- 
tained— that,  in  proportion  as  virtue  made  entrance  upon  the 
world,  misery  would  retire  from  it?  There  is  nothing  to  spoil 
Him  of  this  perfection,  in  a  misery  so  originated  ;  but,  leaving 
this  perfection  untouched,  it  attaches  to  Him  another,  and  we 
infer,  that  He  is  not  merely  benevolent,  but  benevolent  and  holy. 
After  that  the  moral  cause  has  been  discovered  for  the  unhappi- 
ness  of  man,  we  feel  Him  to  be  a  God  of  benevolence  still ;  that 
He  wills  the  happiness  of  his  creatures,  but  v/ith  this  reserva- 
tion, that  the  only  sound  and  sincere  happiness  He  awards  to 
them,  is  happiness  through  the  medium  of  virtue  ;  that  still  He 
is  willing  to  be  the  dispenser  of  joy  substantial  and  unfading,  but 
of  no  such  joy  apart  from  moral  excellence;  that  He  loves  the 
gratification  of  His  children,  but  He  loves  their  righteousness 
more  ;  that  dear  to  Him  is  the  happiness  of  all  His  offspring, 
but  dearer  still  their  worth ;  and  that  therefore  He,  the  moral 


MAKING    A    VIUTUOUS    SPECIES    HAPPY.  215 

governor,  will  so  conduct  the  aflairs  of  His  empire,  as  that  virtue 
and  happiness,  or  that  vice  and  misery  shall  be  associated. 

11.  We  have  already  said,  that,  by  inspecting  a  mechanism, 
sve  can  infer  both  the  original  design  of  Him  who  framed  it,  and 
ihe  derangement  it  has  subsequently  undergone — even  as  by  the 
inspection  of  a  watch,  we  can  infer,  from  the  place  of  command 
which  its  regulator  occupies,  that  it  was  made  for  the  purpose  of 
moving  regularly ;  and  that,  notwithstanding  the  state  of  disre- 
pair and  aberration  into  which  it  may  have  fallen.  And  so,  from 
the  obvious  place  of  rightful  supremacy  which  is  occupied  by  the 
conscience  of  man  in  his  moral  system,  we  can  infer  that  virtue 
was  the  proper  and  primary  design  of  his  creation  ;  and  that, 
notwithstanding  the  actual  prevalence  of  obviously  inferior  prin- 
ciples, over  the  habits  and  history  of  his  life.  Connect  this  with 
the  grand  and  general  adaptation  of  External  Nature  for  which 
we  have  now  been  contending — even  the  capacity  of  that  world 
in  which  we  are  placed  for  making  a  virtuous  species  happy  ;  and 
it  were  surely  far  juster,  in  arguing  for  the  divine  character,  that 
we  founded  our  interpretation  on  the  happiness  which  man's 
original  constitution  is  fitted  to  secure  for  him,  than  on  the  misery 
which  he  suffers  by  that  constitution  having  been  in  some  way 
perverted.  It  is  from  the  native  and  proper  tendency  of  aught 
which  is  made,  that  we  conclude  as  to  the  mind  and  disposition 
of  the  maker  ;  and  not  from  the  actual  effect,  when  that  tendency 
has  been  rendered  abortive,  by  the  extrinsic  operation  of  some 
disturbing  force  on  an  else  goodly  and  well-going  mechanism. 
The  original  design  of  the  Creator  may  be  read  in  the  natural, 
the  universal  tendency  of  things  ;  and  surely,  it  speaks  strongly 
both  for  Ilis  benevolence  and  His  righteousness  that  nothing  is 
so  fitted  to  ensure  the  general  happiness  of  society  as  the  general 
virtue  of  them  who  compose  it.  And  if,  instead  of  this,  we  be- 
hold a  world,  ill  at  ease,  with  its  many  heart-burnings  and  many 
disquietudes — the  fairconclusionis,  that  the  beneficial  tendencies 
which  have  been  established  therein,  and  which  are  therefore  due 
to  the  benevolence  of  God,  have  all  been  thwarted  by  the  moral 
perversity  of  man.  The  compound  lesson  to  be  gathered  from 
such  a  contemplation  is,  that  God  is  the  friend  of  human  happi- 
ness but  the  enemy  of  human  vice — seeing,  He  hath  set  up  an 
economy  in  which  the  former  would  have  grown  up  and  prospered 
universally,  had  not  the  latter  stepped  in  and  overborne  it. 

12.  We  are  now  on  a  ground- work  of  more  firm  texture, 
for  an  argument  in  behalf  of  man's  immortality.  But  it  is  only 
by  a  more  comprehensive  view  both  of  the  character  of  God, 
and  the  actual  state  of  the  world — that  we  obtain  as  much 
evidence  both  for  His  benevolence  and  His  righteousness,  as 


216  THE    CAPACITIES    OF    THE    WORLD    FOR 

might  furnish  logical   premises  for  the  logical  inference  of  a 
future  state. 

13.  We  have  already  stated  that  the  miseries  of  life,  in  their 
great  and  general  amount,  are  resolvable  into  moral  causes  ;  and 
did  each  man  suffer  here,  accurately  in  proportion  to  his  own 
sins,  there  might  be  less  reason  for  the  anticipation  of  another 
state  hereafter.  But  this  proportion  is,  in  no  individual  instance 
perhaps,  ever  realized  on  this  side  of  death.  The  miseries  of 
the  good  are  still  due  to  a  moral  perversity — though  but  to  the 
moral  perversity  of  others,  not  of  his  own.  He  suffers  from  the 
injustice  and  calumny  and  violence  and  evil  tempers  of  those 
who  are  around  him.  On  the  large  and  open  theatre  of  the  world, 
the  cause  of  oppression  is  often  the  triumphant  one  ;  and,  in  the 
bosom  of  families,  the  most  meek  and  innocent  of  the  household, 
are  frequently  the  victims  for  life,  of  a  harsh  and  injurious  though 
unseen  tyranny.  It  is  this  inequality  of  fortune,  or  rather  of  en- 
joyment, between  the  good  and  the  evil,  which  forms  the  most 
popular,  and  enters  as  a  constituent  part  at  least,  into  the  most 
powerful  argument,  which  nature  furnishes,  for  the  immortality 
of  the  soul.  We  cannot  imagine  of  a  God  of  righteousness,  that 
He  will  leave  any  question  of  justice  unsettled  ;  and  there  is 
nothing  which  more  powerfully  suggests  to  the  human  conscience 
the  apprehension  of  a  life  to  come,  than  that  in  this  life,  there 
should  be  so  many  unsettled  questions  ofjustice — first  between 
man  and  man,  secondly  between  man  and  his  Maker. 

14.  The  strength  of  the  former  consideration  lies  in  the  mul- 
tiplicity, and  often  the  fearful  aggravation,  of  the  unredressed 
wrongs  inflicted  every  day  by  man  upon  his  fellows.  The  histo- 
ry of  human  society  teems  with  these  ;  and  the  unappeased  cry, 
whether  for  vengeance  or  reparation,  rises  to  heaven  because  of 
them.  We  might  here  expatiate  on  the  monstrous,  the  wholesale 
atrocities,  perpetrated  on  the  defenceless  by  the  strong ;  and  which 
custom  has  almost  legalized — having  stood  their  ground  against 
the  indignation  of  the  upright  and  the  good  for  many  ages.  Per- 
haps for  the  most  gigantic  example  of  this,  in  the  dark  annals  of 
our  guilty  world,  we  should  turn  our  eyes  upon  injured  Africa — 
that  devoted  region,  where  the  lust  of  gain  has  made  the  fiercest 
andfellest  exhibition  of  its  hardihood ;  and  whose  weeping  families 
are  broken  up  in  thousands  every  year,  that  the  families  of  Eu- 
rope might  the  more  delicately  and  luxuriously  regale  themselves. 
It  is  a  picturesque,  and  seems  a  powerful  argument  for  some  fu- 
ture day  of  retribution,  when  we  look,  on  the  one  hand,  to  the 
prosperity  of  the  lordly  oppressor,  wrung  from  the  sufferings  of  a 
captive  and  subjugated  people  ;  and  look,  on  the  other,  to  the 
tears  and  the  untold  agony  of  the  hundreds  beneath  him,  whose 


MAKING    A    VIRTUOUS    SPECIES    HAPPY.  '      217 

lives  of  dreariness  and  hard  labour  are  ten  fold  Cinbittcrcd,  by  the 
imagery  of  that  dear  and  distant  land,  from  which  they  have  been 
irrecoverably  torn.  But,  even  within  the  confines  of  civilized 
society,  there  do  exist  materials  ibr  our  argument.  There  are 
cruelties  and  wrongs  innumerable,  in  the  conduct  of  business ; 
there  are  even  cruelties  and  wrongs,  in  the  bosom  of  families. 
There  are  the  triumphs  of  injustice  ;  the  success  of  deep-laid  and 
malignant  policy  on  the  one  side,  on  the  other  the  ruin  and  the 
overthrow  of  unprotected  weakness.  Apart  from  the  violence  of 
the  midnight  assault,  or  the  violence  of  the  high  way — there  is, 
even  under  the  forms  of  law,  and  amid  the  blandness  of  social 
courtesies,  a  moral  violence  that  carries  as  grievous  and  sub- 
stantial iniquity  in  its  train  ;  by  which  friendless  and  confiding 
simplicity  may  at  once  be  bereft  of  its  rights,  and  the  artful  op- 
pressor be  enriched  by  the  spoliation.  Have  we  never  seen  the 
bankrupt  rise  again  with  undiminished  splendour,  from  amid  the 
desolation  and  despair  of  the  families  that  have  been  ruined  by 
him  ?  Or,  more  secret  though  not  less  severe,  have  we  not  seen 
the  inmates  of  a  wretched  home  doomed  to  a  hopeless  and  un- 
happy existence,  under  the  sullen  brow  of  the  tyrant  who  lorded 
over  them  ?  There  are  sufferings  from  which  there  is  no  redress 
or  rectification  upon  earth ;  inequalities  between  man  and  man, 
of  which  there  is  no  adjustment  here — but  because  of  that  very 
reason,  there  is  the  utmost  desire,  and  we  might  add  expectancy 
of  our  nature,  that  there  shall  be  an  adjustment  hereafter.  In 
the  unsated  appetency  of  our  hearts  for  justice,  there  is  all  the 
force  of  an  appeal  to  the  Being  who  planted  the  appetite  withm 
us  ;  and  we  feel  that  if  Death  is  to  make  sudden  disruption,  in 
the  midst  of  all  these  .unfinished  questions,  and  so  to  leave  them 
eternally — we  feel  a  violence  done  both  to  our  own  moral  con- 
stitution, and  to  the  high  jurisprudence  of  Him  who  l>amed  us. 

15.  But  there  are  furthermore,  in  this  life,  unfinished  ques- 
tions between  man  and  his  Maker.  The  same  conscience  which 
asserts  its  own  supremacy  within  the  breast,  suggests  the  God 
and  the  Moral  Governor  who  placed  it  there.  It  is  thus  that 
man  not  only  takes  cognizance  of  his  own  delinquencies ;  but 
he  connects  them  with  the  thought  of  a  law-giver  to  whom  he  is 
accountable.  He  passes  by  one  step,  and  with  rapid  inference, 
from  the  feeling  of  a  judge  who  is  within,  to  the  fear  of  a  Judge 
who  sitrf  in  high  authority  over  him.  W'ith  the  sense  of  a  reign- 
ing principle  in  his  own  constitution,  there  stands  associated  the 
sense  of  a  reigning  power  in  the  universe — the  one  challenging 
the  prerogatives  of  a  moral  law,  the  other  avenging  the  violation 
of  them.  Even  the  hardiest  in  guilt  arc  not  insensible  to  Ihe 
force  of  this  sentiment.  They  feel  it,  as  did  Cataline  and  the 
19 


218  THE    CAPACITIES    OF    THE    WORLD    FOR 

worst  of  Roman  emperors,  in  the  horrors  of  remorse.  There  is, 
in  spite  of  themselves,  the  impression  of  an  avenging  God — not 
the  less  founded  upon  reasoning,  that  it  is  the  reasoning  of  but 
one  truth  or  rather  of  but  one  transition,  from  a  thing  intimately 
known  to  a  thing  immediately  concluded,  from  the  reckoning  of 
a  felt  and  u  present  conscience  within,  to  the  more  awful  reckon- 
ing of  a  God  \\ho  is  the  author  of  conscience  and  who  knoweth 
all  things.  Now,  it  is  thus,  that  men  are  led  irresistibly  to  the 
anticipation  of  a  future  state — not  by  their  hopes,  we  think,  but 
by  their  fears  ;  not  by  a  sense  of  unfulfilled  promises,  but  by  the 
sense  and  the  terror  of  unfulfilled  penalties  ;  by  their  sense  of  a 
judgment  not  yet  executed,  of  a  wrath  not  yet  discharged  upon 
them.  lience  the  impression  of  a  futurity  upon  all  spirits,  whither 
are  carried  forward  the  issues  of  a  jurisprudence,  which  bears 
no  marks  but  the  contrary  of  a  full  and  final  consummation  on 
this  side  of  death.  I'he  prosperity  of  many  wicked  who  impend 
their  days  in  resolute  and  contemptuous  irreligion  ;  the  practi- 
cal defiance  of  their  lives  to  the  bidding  of  conscience,  and 
yet  a  voice  of  remonstrance  and  of  warning  from  this  said  con- 
science which  they  are  unable  wholly  to  quell ;  the  many  em- 
phatic denunciations,  not  uttered  in  audible  thunder  from  above, 
but  uttered  in  secret  and  impressive  whispers  from  within — 
these  all  point  to  accounts  between  God  and  His  creatures  that 
are  yet  unfinished.  If  there  be  no  future  state,  the  great  moral 
question  between  lieaven  and  earth,  broken  ofl'  at  the  m.iddle,  is 
frittered  into  a  degrading  mockery.  There  is  violence  done  to 
the  continuity  of  things.  The  moral  constitution  of  man  is  stript 
of  its  signiiicancy  and  the  Author  of  that  constitution  is  stript  of 
His  wisdom  and  authority  and  honour.  That  consistent  march 
which  we  behold  in  all  the  cycles,  and  progressive  movements  of 
the  natural  economy,  is,  in  the  moral  economy,  brought  to  sud- 
den arrest  and  disruption — if  death  annihilate  the  man,  instead 
of  only  transforming  him.  Audit  is  only  the  doctrine  of  his  im- 
mortality by  which  all  can  be  adjusted  and  harmonized.* 

16.  And  there  is  one  especial  proof  for  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  founded  on  adaptation ;  and  therefore  so  identical  in  prin- 
ciple with  the  sul)ject  and  main  argument  of  our  essay — that  we 
feel  its  statement  to  be  our  best  and  most  appropriate  termina- 
tion of  this  especial  enquiry.  The  argument  is  this.  For 
every  desire  or  every  faculty,  whether  in  man  or  in  the  in- 
ferior animals,  there  seems  a  counterpart  object  in  external  na- 

*  It  is  well  sai(i  by  Mr.  Davison,  in  his  profound  and  original  Mcrk  on.  Prophecy — 
tliat  "  Conscience  and  \he  jrresent  constitution  of  things  are  not  con-esponding  terms. 
The  one  is  not  the  object  of  perception  to  tlie  other.  It  is  conscience  and  the  issue 
of  things  which  go  together." 


MAKING    A    VIRTUOUS    SPECIES    HAPPV.  219 

ture.  Let  it  be  either  an  appetite  or  a  power  ;  and  let  it  reside 
either  in  the  sentient  or  in*  the  intellectual  or  in  the  moral  eco- 
nomy— still  there  exists  a  something  without  that  is  altogether 
suited  to  it,  and  which  seems  to  be  expressly  provided  tor  its 
gratification.  There  is  light  for  the  eye  ;  there  is  air  for  the 
lungs ;  there  is  food  for  the  ever-recurring  appetite  of  hunger ; 
there  is  water  for  the  appetite  of  thirst ;  there  is  society  for  the 
love,  whether  of  fame  or  of  fellowship ;  there  is  a  boundless 
field  in  all  the  objects  of  all  the  sciences  for  the  exercise  of  cu- 
rosity — in  a  word,  there  seems  not  one  affection  m  the  living  crea- 
ture, which  is  not  met  by  a  counterpart  and  a  congenial  object  in 
the  surrounding  creation.  It  is  this,  in  fact,  which  forn)s  an  im- 
portant class  of  those  adaptations,  on  which  the  argument  for  a 
Deity  is  founded.  The  adaptation  of  the  parts  to  each  other 
A\ithin  the  organic  structure,  is  distinct  from  the  adaptation  of  the 
whole  to  the  tilings  of  circumambient  nature ;  and  is  well  unfolded 
in  a  separate  chapter  by  Paiey,  on  the  relation  of  inanimate  bodies 
to  animated  nature.  But  there  is  another  chapter  on  })rospective 
contrivances,  in  which  he  unfolds  to  us  other  adaptations,  that 
approximate  still  more  nearly  to  our  argument.  They  consist  of 
embryo  arrangements  or  parts,  not  of  immediate  use,  but  to  be 
of  use  eventually — preparations  going  on  in  the  animal  economy, 
whereof  the  full  benefit  is  not  to  be  realized,  till  some  future  and 
often  considerably  distant  developement  shall  have  taken  place  ; 
such  as  the  teeth  buried  in  their  sockets,  that  would  be  incon- 
venient during  the  first  months  of  infancy,  but  come  forth  when 
it  is  sufficiently  advanced  for  another  and  a  new  sort  of  nourish- 
ment ;  such  as  the  manifold  preparations,  anterior  to  the  birth, 
that  are  of  no  use  to  the  foetus,  but  are  afterwards  to  be  of  in- 
dispensable use  in  a  larger  and  freer  state  of  existence ;  such 
as  the  instructive  tendencies  to  action  that  appear  before  even 
the  instruments  of  action  are  provided,  as  in  the  calf  of  a  day 
old  to  butt  with  its  head  before  it  has  been  furnished  with  horns. 
Nature  abounds,  not  merely  in  present  expedients  for  an  imme- 
diate use,  but  in  providential  expedients  for  a  future  one  ;  and, 
as  far  as  we  can  observe,  we  have  no  reason  to  believe,  that, 
either  in  the  fii-st  or  second  sort  of  expedients,  there  has  ever 
aught  been  noticed,  which  either  bears  on  no  object  now,  or 
lands  in  no  result  afterwards.  We  may  perceive  in  this,  the 
jl  ghmpse  of  an  argument  for  the  soul's  immortality.  TVe  may 
enter  into  the  analogy,  as  stated  by  Dr.  Ferguson,  when  he 
says — "  whoever  considers  the  anatomy  of  the  fcetus,  will  find, 
in  the  strength  of  bones  and  muscles,  in  the  organs  of  respira- 
tion and  digestion,  sufficient  indications  of  a  design  to  remove 
his  being  into  a  different  state.     The  observant  and  the  intel- 


220  THE    CAPACITIES    OF    THE    WORLD    FOR 

ligent  may  perhaps  find  in  the  mind  of  man  parallel  signs  of  his 
future  destination.* 

17.  Now  what  inference  shall  we  draw  from  this  remarkable 
law  in  nature,  that  there  is  nothing  waste  and  nothing  meaning- 
less in  the  feelings  and  faculties  wherewith  living  creatures  are 
endowed?  For  each  desire  there  is  a  counterpart  object,  for 
each  faculty  there  is  room  and  opportunity  of  exercise — either 
in  the  present,  or  in  the  coming  futurity.  Now,  but  for  the  doc- 
trine of  immortality,  man  Avould  be  an  exception  to  this  law.  He 
would  stand  forth  as  an  anomaly  in  nature — with  aspirations  in 
his  heart  for  which  the  universe  had  no  antitype  to  offer,  with 
capacities  of  understanding  and  thought,  that  never  were  to  be 
followed,  by  objects  of  corresponding  greatness,  through  the 
whole  history  of  his  being.  It  were  a  violence  to  the  harmony 
of  things,  whereof  no  other  example  can  be  given  ;  and,  in  as  far 
as  an  argument  can  be  founded  on  this  harmony  for  the  wisdom 
of  Him  who  made  all  things — it  were  a  reflection  on  one  of  the 
conceived,  if  not  one  of  the  ascertained  attributes  of  the  God- 
head. To  feel  the  force  of  this  argument,  we  have  only  to  look 
to  the  obvious  adaptation  of  his  powers  to  a  larger  and  more  en- 
during theatre — to  the  dormant  faculties  which  are  in  him  for  the 
.  mastery  and  acquisition  of  all  the  sciences,  and  yet  the  partial  ig- 
norance of  all,  and  the  profound  or  total  ignorance  of  many,  in 
which  he  spends  the  short-Hved  years  of  his  present  existence — 
to  the  boundless,  but  here,  the  unopened  capabilities  which  lie 
up  in  him,  for  the  comprehension  of  truths  that  never  once  draw 

*  Dr.  Fero-iison's  reasoning  upon  this  subject  is  worthy  of  being  extracted  more 
largely  than  we  have  room  for  in  the  text — "  If  the  human  foetus,"  he  observes,  "  were 
qualified  to  reason  of  his  prospects  in  the  womb  of  his  parent,  as  he  may  afterwards 
do  in  his  range  on  this  terrestrial  globe,  he  might  no  doubt  apprehend  in  the  breach 
of  his  umbilical  chord,  and  in  his  separation  from  the  womb  a  total  extinction  of  life, 
for  how  could  he  conceive  it  to  continue  after  his  only  supply  of  nourishment  from  the 
vital  stock  of  his  parent  had  ceased  ?  He  might  indeed  observe  many  parts  of  his 
organization  and  frame  which  should  seem  to  have  no  relation  to  his  state  in  the  womb. 
For  what  purpose,  he  might  say,  this  duct  which  leads  from  the  mouth  to  the  intestines  ? 
Whv  these  bones  that  each  apart  become  hard  and  stiff",  while  ihey  are  separated 
from  one  another  by  so  many  flexures  or  joints?  Why  these  joints  in  particular 
made  to  move  upon  hinges,  and  these  germs  of  teeth,  which  are  pushing  to  be  felt 
above  the  surface  of  the  gums  ?  Why  the  stomach  through  which  nothing  is  made  to 
pass  ?  And  these  spungy  lungs,  so  well  fitted  to  drink  up  the  fluids,  but  into  which  the 
blood  that  passes  every  where  else  is  scarcely  permitted  to  enter? 

"  To  these  queries,  which  the  fcEtus  was  neither  qualified  to  make  nor  to  answer,  we 
are  now  well  apprized  the  proper  answer  would  be — the  life  which  you  now  enjoy  is 
but  temporary  ;  and  those  particulars  which  now  seem  to  you  so  preposterous,  are  a 
provision  which  nature  has  made  for  a  future  course  of  life  which  you  have  to  run, 
and  in  which  their  use  and  propriety  will  appear  sufficiently  evident. 

"  Such  are  the  prognostics  of  a  future  destination  that  might  be  collected  from  the 
state  of  the  foetus  ;  and  similar  prognostics  of  a  destination  still  future  might  be  col- 
lected from  present  appearances  in  the  life  and  condition  of  man." 


MAKING    A    VIRTUOUS    SPECIES    HAPPY.  221 

his  attention  on  this  side  of  death,  for  the  contemplative  enjoy- 
ment both  of  moral  and  intellectual  beauties  which  have  never 
here  revealed  themselves  to  his  gaze.     The  whole  labour  of  this 
mortal  life  would  not  suffice,  for  traversing  in  lull  extent  any  one 
of  the  sciences  ;   and  yet,  there  may  lie  undeveloped   in  his  bo- 
som, a  taste  and  talent  for  them  all — none  of  which  he  can  even 
singly  overtake  ;  for  each  science,  though  definite  in  its  com- 
mencement, has  its  out-goings  in  the  inlinite  and  the  eternal. 
There  is  in   man,  a  restlessness  of  ambition;  an  interminable 
longing  after  nobler  and  higher  things,  Avhich  nought  but  immor- 
tality and  the  greatness  of  immortality  can  satiate;   a  dissatis- 
faction with  the  present,  which  never  is  appeased  by  all  that  the 
world  has  to  offer ;  an  impatience  and   distaste  with  the  felt  lit- 
tleness of  all  that  he  finds,  and  an  unsated  appetency  for  some- 
thing larger  and  better,  which  he  fancies  in  the  perspective  be- 
fore him — to  all  which  there  is  nothing  like  among  any  of  the 
inferior  animals,  with  whom,  there  is  a  certain  squareness  of  ad- 
justment, if  we  may  so  term  it,  between  each  desire  and  its  cor- 
respondent gratification.     The  one  is  evenly  met  by  the  other; 
and  there  is  a  fulness  and  definiteness  of  enjoyment,  up  to  the 
capacity  of  enjoyment.     Not  so  wifh  man,  who  both  from  the 
Vcistness  of  his  propensities  and  the  vastness  of  his  pov/ers,  feels 
jiimself  straitened  and  beset  in  a  field  too  narrow  for  him.     He 
alone  labours   under  the  discomfort  of  an   incongruity  betv/een 
his  circumstances  and  his  powers;  and,  unless  there  be  new  cir- 
cumstances awaiting  him  in  a  more  advanced  state  of  being,  he, 
the  noblest  of  Nature's  products  here  below,  would  turn  out  to 
'ye  the  g\tsXof-d  of  her  failures. 


222  THE    INTELLECTUAL 


PART  II. 

ON    THE    ADAPTATION    OF    EXTERNAL    NATURE    TO    THE  INTEL- 
LECTUAL   CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Chief  Instances  of  this  Jldaptation, 

1.   (1.)   The  law  of  most  extensive  influence  over  the  pheno- 
mena and  processes  of  the  mind,  is  the  law  of  association,  or,  as 
denominated  by  Dr.  Thomas  Brown,  the  law  of  suggestion.     If 
two  objects   have    been  seen   in  conjunction,  or  in  immediate 
succession,  at  any  one  time — then  the  sight  or  thought  of  one  of 
them  afterwards,  is  apt  to  suggest  the  thought  of  the  other  also  ; 
and  the  same  is  true  of  the  objects  of  all  the  senses.     The  same 
smells  or  sounds  or  tastes  which  have  occurred  formerly,  when 
they  occur  again,  will  often  recall  the   objects  from  which  they 
then  proceeded,  the  occasions  or  other  objects  with  which  they 
were  then  associated.      When  one  meets  with  a  fragrance  of  a 
particular  sort,  it  may  often  instantly  suggest  a  fragrance  of  the 
same  kind    experienced  months  or  years  ago  ;  the   rose-bufh 
from  which  it  came  ;  the  garden  where  it  grew ;  the   friend  with 
whom  we   then  walked  ;  his  features,  his  conversation,  his  re- 
latives, his  history.     When  two  ideas  have  been  once  in  juxta- 
position, they  are  apt  to   present  tliemselves   in  juxta-position 
over  again — an  aptitude  ^\'hich  ever  increases  the   oftener  that 
the  conjunction  has  taken  place,  till,  as  if  by  an   invincible   ne- 
cessity, the  antecedent  thought  is  sure  to  bring  its  usual  conse- 
quent along  with  it ;  and,  not  oidy  single  sequences,  but  length- 
ened  trains  or  progressions  of  thought,  may  in  this   manner  be 
explained. 

2.  And  such  are  the  great  speed  and  facility  of  these  succes- 
sions, that  many  of  the  intermediate  terms,  though  all  of  them 
undoubtedly  present  to  the  mind,  flit  so  quickly  and  evanescent- 
ly,  as  to  pass  unnoticed.  This  will  the  more  certainly  happen, 
if  the  antecedents  are  of  no  further  use  than  to  introduce  the 


CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  223 

consequents  ;  in  which  case,  the  consequents  remain  as  the  sole 
objects  of  attention,  and  the  antecedents  arc  forgotten.     In  the 
art  of  reading,  the  ultimate  object  is  to   obtain  possession  of  the 
author's  sentiments  or  meaning  ;  and  all  memory  of  the  words, 
still  more  of  the  component  letters,  though  each   of  them    must 
have  been  present  to  the  mind,  pass  irrecoverably  away  from  it. 
In  like  manner,  the  anterior  steps  of  many  a  mental  process  may 
actually  be  described,  yet  without  consciousness — the  attention 
resting,  not  on  the  fugitive  means,  but  on  the  important  end  in 
which  they  terminate.     It  is  thus  that  we  seem  to  judge,  on  the 
instant,   of  distances,  as  if  under    a  guidance  that  was  imme- 
diate and  instinctive,  and  not  by  the  result  of  a  derivative  pro- 
cess— because   insensible  to  the  rapid  train  of  inference  which 
led  to  it.     The  mind  is  too  much  occupied  with  the  information 
itself,  for  looking  back  on  the  light  and  shadowy  footsteps  of  the 
messenger  wlio  brought  it,  which  it  Avould  find  difficult   if  not 
impossible  to  trace — and  besides,  having  no  practical  call  upon 
it  for  making  such  a  retrospect.     It  is  thus  that,  when  looking 
intensely  on  some  beautiful   object  in  Nature,  we  are  so  much 
occupied  with  the  resulting  enjoyment,  as  to  overlook  the  inter- 
mediate   train   of  unbidden    associations,  which   connects    the 
sight  of  that  which  is  before  us,  with  the  resulting  and  exqui- 
site pleasure,  that  we  feel  in  the  act  of  beholding  it.     The  prin- 
ciple has  been  much  resorted  to,  in  expounding  that  process  by 
which  the   education   of  the    senses   is   carried  forward ;  and, 
more  especially,  the  way  in  which  the   intimations  Df  sight  and 
touch  are  made  to  correct  and  to  modify  each  other.     It  has 
also  been  employed  with  good  effect,  in  the  attempt  to  establish 
a  philosophy  of  taste.     But  these  rapid  and  fugitive  associa- 
tions, while  they  form  a  real,  form  also  an  unseen  process  ;  and 
we  are  not  therefore  to  wonder,  if,  along  with  many  solid  expla- 
nations, (hey  should  have  been  so  applied  in  the  investigation  of 
mental   phenomena,  as  occasionally  to  have  given  rise  to  subtle 
and  fantastic  theories. 

3.  But  our  proper  business  at  present  is  with  results,  rather 
than  with  })rocesses  ;  and  instead  of  entering  on  the  more  re- 
condite inquiries  of  the  science,  however  interesting  and  how- 
ever beautiful  or  even  satisfactory  the  conclusions  may  be  to 
which  they  lead — it  is  our  task  to  point  out  those  palpable  bene- 
fits and  subserviencies  of  our  intellectual  constitution,  which 
demonstrate,  without  obscurity,  the  benevolent  designs  of  Ilnn 
who  framed  us.  There  are  some  of  our  mental  philosophers, 
indeed,  who  have  theorised  and  simplified  beyond  the  evidence 
of  those  facts  which  lie  before  us  ;  and  our  argument  should  be 
kept  clear,  for  in  reality  it  does  not  partake,  in  the  uncertainty  or 


224  THE    INTELLECTUAL 

error  of  their  speculations.  The  law  of  association,  for  exam- 
ple, has  been  of  late  reasoned  upon,  as  if  it  were  the  sole  parent 
and  predecessor  of  all  the  mental  phenomena.  Yet  it  does  not 
explain,  however  largely  it  may  influence,  the  phenomena  of 
memory.  When  by  means  of  one  idea,  any  how  awakened  in 
the  mind,  the  whole  of  some  past  transaction  or  scene  is  brought 
to  recollection,  it  is  association  which  recalls  to  our  thoughts 
this  portion  of  our  former  history.  But  association  cannot  ex- 
plain our  recognition  of  its  actual  and  historical  truth — or  what 
it  is,  which,  beside  an  act  of  conception,  makes  it  also  an  act  of 
remembrance.  By  means  of  tiiis  law  we  may  understand  how  it 
is,  that  certain  ideas,  suggested  by  certain  others  which  came 
before  it,  are  now  present  to  the  mind.  But  superadded  to  the 
mere  presence  of  these  ideas,  there  is  such  a  perception  of  the 
reality  of  their  archetypes,  as  distinguishes  a  case  of  remem- 
brance from  a  case  of  imagination — insomuch  that  over  and 
above  the  conception  of  certain  objects,  there  is  also  a  convic- 
tion of  their  substantive  being  at  the  time  wliich  we  connect  with 
the  thought  of  them  ;  and  this  is  what  the  law  of  association  can- 
not by  itself  account  for.  It  cannot  account  for  our  reliance  upon 
memory — not  as  a  conjurer  of  visions  into  the  chamber  of  im- 
agery, but  as  an  informer  of  stable  and  objective  truths  which 
h-ad  place  and  fulfilment  in  the  actual  world  of  experience. 

4.  And  the  same  is  true  of  our  believing  anticipations  of  the 
future,  which  we  have  now  affirmed  to  be  true  of  our  believing 
retrospects  of  the  past.  The  confidence  wherewith  we  count  on 
the  same  sequences  in  future,  that  we  have  observed  in  the  course 
of  our  past  experience,  has  been  resolved  by  some  philosophers, 
into  the  principle  of  association  alone.  Now  when  we  have  seen 
a  certain  antecedent  followed  up  by  a  certain  consequent,  the 
law  of  association  does  of  itself  afford  a  sufficient  reason,  why 
the  idea  of  that  antecedent  should  be  followed  up  by  the  idea  of 
its  consequent ;  but  it  contains  within  it  no  reason,  why,  on  the 
actual  occurrence  again  of  the  antecedent,  we  should  believe  that 
the  consequent  will  occur  also.  That  the  thought  of  the  ante- 
cedent should  suggest  the  thought  of  the  consequent,  is  one  men- 
tal phenomenon.  That  the  knov/ledge  of  the  antecedent  having 
anew  taken  place,  should  induce  the  certainty,  that  the  conse- 
quent must  have  taken  place  also,  is  another  mental  phenomenon. 
We  cannot  confound  these  two,  without  being  involved  in  the 
idealism  of  Hume  or  Berkeley.  Were  the  mere  thought  of  the 
consequent  all  that  was  to  be  accounted  for,  we  need  not  go 
farther  than  to  the  law  of  association.  But  when  to  the  exist- 
ence of  this  thought,  there  is  superadded  a  belief  in  the  reaHty  of 
its  archetype,  a  distinct  mental  phenomenon  comes  into  view, 


CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  225 

which  the  law  of  association  docs  not  explain ;  and  which,  Cot 
aught  that  the  analysts  of  the  mind  have  yet  been  able  to  trace 
or  to  discover,  is  an  idtiniate  principle  of  the  human  understand- 
ing. This  behef,  then,  is  one  thing.  But  ere  we  can  make  out 
an  adaptation,  we  must  be  able  to  allege  at  least  two  things. 
And  they  are  ready  to  our  hands — for,  in  addition  to  the  belief  in 
the  subjective  mind,  there  is  a  correspondent  and  counterpart 
reality  in  objective  nature.  If  we  have  formerly  observed  that  a 
given  antecedent  is  followed  by  a  certain  consequent,  then,  not 
only  does  the  idea  of  the  antecedent  suggest  the  idea  of  the  con- 
sequent ;  but  there  is  a  belief,  that,  on  the  actual  occurrence  of 
the  same  antecedent,  the  same  consequent  will  follow  over  again. 
And  the  consequent  does  follow ;  or,  in  other  words,  this  our 
instinctive  faith  meets  with  its  unexcepted  fulfilment,  in  the  ac- 
tual course  and  constancy  of  nature.  The  law  of  association 
does  of  itself,  and  without  going  further,  secure  this  general 
convenience — that  the  courses  of  the  mind  are  thereby  conform- 
ed, or  are  made  to  quadrate  and  harmonize  with  the  courses  of 
the  outer  world.  It  is  the  best  possible  construction  for  the  best 
and  most  useful  guidance  of  the  mind,  as  in  the  exercise  of 
memory  for  example,  that  thought  should  be  made  to  follow 
thought,  according  to  the  order  in  which  the  objects  and  events 
of  nature  are  related  to  each  other.  But  a  belief  in  the  certainty 
and  uniformity  of  this  order,  with  the  counteri)art  verification  of 
this  belief  in  the  actual  history  of  thmgs,  is  that  which  we  now 
are  especially  regarding.  It  forms  our  iirst  instance,  perhaps 
the  most  striking  and  marvellous  of  all,  of  the  adaptation  of  ex- 
ternal natiue  to  the  intellectual  constitution  of  man. 

5.  This  disposition  to  count  on  the  uniformity  of  Nature,  or 
even  to  anticipate  the  same  consequents  from  the  same  antece- 
dents— is  not  the  fruit  of  experience,  but  anterior  to  it ;  or  at 
least  anterior  to  the  very  earliest  of  those  of  her  lessons,  which 
can  be  traced  backward  in  the  history  of  an  infant  mind.  Indeed 
it  has  been  well  observed  by  Dr.  Thomas  Brown,  that  the  future 
constancy  of  Nature,  is  a  lesson,  which  no  observation  of  its 
past  constancy,  or  no  experience  could  have  taught  us.  Be- 
cause we  have  observed  A  a  thousand  times  to  be  followed  in 
immediate  succession  by  B,  there  is  no  greater  logical  connex- 
ion between  this  proposition  and  the  })roposition  that  A  will 
always  be  followed  by  B  ;  than  there  is  between  the  propositions 
that  we  have  seen  A  followed  once  by  B,  and  therefore  A  will 
always  be  followed  by  B.  At  whatever  stage  of  the  experience, 
the  inference  may  be  made,  whether  longer  or  shorter,  whether 
oftener  or  seldomer  repeated — the  conversion  of  the  past  into 
the  future  seems  to  require  a  distinct  and  independent  principle 


226  THE    INTELLECTUAL 

of  belief;  and  it  is  a  principle  which,  to  all  appearance,  is  as 
vigorous  in  childhood,  as  in  the  full  maturity  of  the  human  un- 
derstanding. The  child  who  strikes  the  table  with  a  spoon  for 
the  first  time,  and  is  regaled  by  the  noise,  will  strike  again,  with 
as  confident  an  expectation  of  the  same  result,  as  if  the  succes- 
sion had  been  familiar  to  it  for  years.  There  is  the  expectation 
before  the  experience  of  Nature's  constancy  ;  and  still  the  topic 
of  our  wonder  and  gratitude  is,  that  this  instinctive  and  universal 
faith  in  the  heart,  should  be  responded  to  by  objective  nature,  in 
one  wide  and  universal  fulfilment. 

6.  The  proper  office  of  experience,  in  this  matter,  is  very  ge- 
nerally misapprehended  ;  and  this  has  mystified  the  real  principle 
and  philosophy  of  the  subject.  Her  office  is  not  to  tell,  or  to  re- 
assure us  of  the  constancy  of  Nature  ;  but  to  tell,  Avhat  the  terms 
of  her  unalterable  progressions  actually  are.  The  human  mind 
from  its  first  outset,  and  in  virtue  of  a  constitutional  bias  coeval 
with  the  earliest  dawn  of  the  understanding,  is  prepared,  and  that 
before  experience  has  begun  her  lessons,  to  count  on  the  con- 
stancy of  nature's  sequences.  But  at  that  time,  it  is  profoundly 
ignorant  of  the  sequences  in  themselves.  It  is  the  proper  busi- 
ness of  experience  to  give  this  information  ;  but  it  may  require 
many  lessons  before  that  her  disciples  be  made  to  understand, 
what  be  the  distinct  terms  even  but  of  one  sequence.  Nature 
presents  us  with  her  phenomena  in  complex  assemblages  ;  and  it 
is  often  difficult,  in  the  work  of  disentangling  her  trains  from  each 
other,  to  single  out  the  proper  and  causal  antecedent  with  its  re- 
sulting consequent,  from  among  the  crowd  of  accessary  or  acci- 
dental circumstances  by  which  they  are  surrounded.  There  is 
never  any  uncertainty,  as  to  the  invariableness  of  nature's  suc- 
cessions. The  only  uncertainty  is  as  to  the  steps  of  each  succes- 
sion ;  and  the  distinct  achievement  of  experience,  is  to  ascertain 
these  steps.  And  many  mistakes  are  committed  in  this  course 
of  education,  from  our  disposition  to  confound  the  similarities 
with  the  samenesses  of  Nature.  We  never  misgive  in  our  ge- 
neral confidence,  that  the  same  antecedent  will  be  followed  by  the 
same  consequent ;  but  we  often  mistake  the  semblance  for  the 
reality,  and  are  as  often  disappointed  in  the  expectations  that  we 
form.  This  is  the  real  account  of  that  growing  confidence,  where- 
with we  anticipate  the  same  results  in  the  same  apparent  circum- 
stances, the  oftener  that  that  result  has  in  these  circumstances 
been  observed  by  us — as  of  a  high- water  about  twice  every  day, 
or  of  a  sun-rise  every  morning.  It  is  not  that  we  need  to  be  more 
assured  than  we  are  already  of  the  constancy  of  Nature,  in  the 
sense  that  every  result  must  always  be  the  sure  efl^ect  of  its  strict 
and  causal  antecedent.     But  we  need  to  be  assured  of  the  real 


CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  227 

presence  of  this  antecedent,  in  that  mass  of  contemporaneous 
things  under  which  the  result  has  taken  place  hitherto  ;  and  of 
this  we  are  more  and  more  satisfied,  with  every  new  occurrence 
of  the  same  event  in  the  same  apparent  circumstances.  This  too 
Is  our  real  object  in  the  repetition  of  experiments.  Not  that  we 
suspect  that  Nature  will  ever  vacillate  from  her  constancy — for 
if  by  one  decisive  experiment  we  should  fix  the  real  terms  of 
any  succession,  this  experiment  were  to  us  as  good  as  a  thousand. 
But  each  succession  in  nature  is  so  liable  to  be  obscured  and 
complicated  by  other  influences,  that  we  must  be  quite  sure,  ere 
we  can  proclaim  our  discovery  of  some  new  sequence,  that  we 
have  properly  disentangled  her  separate  trains  from  each  other. 
For  this  purpose,  we  have  often  to  question  Nature  in  many  difr 
ferent  ways ;  we  have  to  combine  and  apply  her  elements  va- 
riously ;  we  have  sometimes  to  detach  one  ingredient,  or  to  add 
another,  or  to  alter  the  proportions  of  a  third — and  all  in  order, 
not  to  ascertain  the  invariableness  of  Nature,  for  of  this  we  have 
had  instinctive  certainty  from  the  beginning ;  but,  in  order  to  as- 
certain what  the  actual  footsteps  of  her  progressions  are,  so  as 
to  connect  each  effect  in  the  history  of  Nature's  changes  with  its 
strict  and  proper  cause.  Meanwhile,  amid  all  the  suspense  and 
the  frequent  disappointments  which  attend  this  search  into  the  pro- 
cesses of  nature,  our  confidence  in  the  rigid  and  inviolable  uni- 
formity of  these  processes  remains  unshaken — a  confidence  not 
learned  from  experience,  but  amply  confirmed  and  accorded  to 
by  experience.  For  this  instinctive  expectation  is  never  once 
refuted,  in  the  whole  course  of  our  subsequent  researches.  Na- 
ture though  stretched  on  a  rack,  or  put  to  the  torture  by  the  in- 
quisitions of  science,  never  falters  from  her  immutability ;  but 
persists,  unseduced  and  unwearied,  in  the  same  response  to  the 
same  question  ;  or  gives  forth,  by  a  spark,  or  an  explosion,  or  an 
effervescence,  or  some  other  definite  phenomenon,  the  same  re- 
sult to  the  same  circumstances  or  combination  of  data.  The 
anticipations  of  infancy  meet  with  their  glorious  verification,  in 
all  the  findings  of  manhood ;  and  a  truth  which  would  seem  to 
require  Omniscience  for  its  grasp,  as  coextensive  with  all  Nature 
and  all  History,  is  deposited  by  the  hand  of  God,  in  the  little  cell 
of  a  nursling's  cogitations. 

7.  Yet  the  immutability  of  Nature  has  ministered  to  the  athe- 
ism of  some  spirits,  as  impressing  on  the  universe  a  character 
of  blind  necessity,  instead  of  that  spontaneity,  which  might  mark 
the  intervention  of  a  willing  and  a  living  God.  To  refute  this 
notion  of  an  unintelligent  fate,  as  being  the  alone  presiding  Di- 
vinity, the  common  appeal  is  to  the  infinity  and  exquisite  skill  of 
nature's  adaptations.      But  to  attack  this  infidelity  in  its  fortress, 


228  THE    INTELLECTUAL 

and  dislodge  it  thence,  the  more  appropriate  argument  would  be 
the  very,  the  individual  adaptation  on  which  we  have  now  in- 
sisted— the  immutabiUty  of  Nature,  in  conjunction  with  the  uni- 
versal sense  and  expectation,  even  from  earliest  childhood,  that 
all  men  have  of  it ;  being  itself  one  of  the  most  marvellous  and 
strikingly  beneficial  of  these  adaptations.  When  viewed  aright, 
it  leads  to  a  wiser  and  sounder  conclusion  than  that  of  the  fatal- 
ists. In  the  instinctive,  the  universal  faith  of  Nature's  constancy, 
we  behold  a  promise.  In  the  actual  constancy  of  Nature,  we 
behold  its  fulfilment.  When  the  two  are  viewed  in  connexion, 
then,  to  be  told  that  Nature  never  recedes  from  her  constancy, 
is  to  be  told  that  the  God  of  Nature  never  recedes  from  his  faith- 
fulness. If  not  by  a  whisper  from  His  voice,  at  least  by  the  im- 
press of  His  hand.  He  hath  deposited  a  silent  expectation  in 
every  heart ;  and  He  makes  all  Nature  and  all  History  conspire 
to  realize  it.  He  hath  not  only  enabled  man  to  retain  in  his 
memory  a  faithful  transcript  of  the  past ;  but  by  means  of  this 
constitutional  tendency,  tliis  instinct  of  the  understanding  as  it 
has  been  termed,  to  look  with  prophetic  eye  upon  the  future.  It 
is  the  Unk  by  which  we  connect  experience  with  anticipation — a 
power  or  exercise  of  the  mind  coeval  with  the  first  dawnings  of 
consciousness  or  observation,  because  obviously  that  to  Vvhich 
we  owe  the  confidence  so  early  acquired  and  so  firmly  esta- 
bhshed,  in  the  information  of  our  senses.*     This  disposition  to 

*It  is  from  our  tactual  sensations  that  we  obtain  our  first  original  perceptions  of  dis- 
tance and  magnitude  ;  and  it  is  only  because  of  the  invariable  connexion  which  sub- 
sists between  the  same  tactual  and  the  same  visual  sensations,  that  by  means  of  the 
latter  we  obtain  secondary  or  acquired  perceptions  of  distance  and  magnitude.  It  is 
obvious  that  without  a  faith  in  the  uniformity  of  nature,  this  rudimental  education  could 
not  have  taken  effect ;  and  from  the  confidence  wherewith  we  proceed  in  very  early 
childhood  on  the  intimations  of  the  eye,  we  may  infer  how  strongly  this  principle  must 
have  been  at  work  throughout  the  anterior  stage  of  our  still  earlier  infancy.  The  lucid 
and  satisfactory  demonstration  upon  this  subject  in  that  delightful  little  work,  the 
Tiieory  of  Vision,  by  Bishop  Berkeley,  has  not  been  superseded,  because  it  has  not 
been  improved  upon,  by  the  lucubrations  of  any  subsequent  author.  The  theology 
which  he  would  found  on  the  beautiful  process  which  he  has  unfolded  so  well,  is  some- 
what tinged  with  tlic  mysticism  of  that  doctrine  which  represents  our  seeing  all  things 
in  God.  Certain  it  is,  however,  that  the  process  could  not  have  been  advanced  or 
consummated,  without  an  aboriginal  faith  on  the  part  of  the  infant  mind  in  the  unifor- 
mity of  nature's  sequences,  a  disposition  to  expect  the  same  consequents  from  the  same 
antecedents — an  inference  which  is  at  length  made,  and  that  in  very  early  childhood, 
with  such  rapidity  as  well  as  confidence,  that  it  leads  all  men  to  confound  their  ac- 
quired with  their  original  perceptions  ;  and  it  requires  a  subtle  analysis  to  disentangle 
the  two  from  each  other.  Without  partaking  in  the  metaphysics  of  Berkeley,  we 
fully  concur  in  the  strength  and  certainty  of  those  theistical  conclusions  which  are  ex- 
pressed by  him  in  the  following  sentences — "  Something  there  is  of  divine  and  admi- 
rable in  this  language  addressed  to  our  eyes,  that  may  well  awaken  the  mind,  and  de- 
serve its  utmost  attention  ;  it  is  learned  with  so  little  pains,  it  expresses  the  difference 
of  things  so  clearly  and  aptly,  it  instructs  with  such  facility  and  dispatch,  by  one  glance 
of  the  eye  conveying  a  greater  variety  of  advices,  and  a  more  distinct  knowledge  of 


CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  229 

presiunie  on  the  constancy  of  nature,  commences  with  the  faculty 
of  thought,  and  keeps  by  it  through  hfe,  and  enables  the  mind  to 
convert  its  stores  of  memory  into  the  treasures  of  science  and 
wisdom  ;  and  so  to  elicit  from  the  recollections  of  the  past,  both 
the  doctrines  of  a  general  philosophy,  and  the  lessons  of  daily 
and  familiar  conduct — and  that,  by  means  of  prognostics,  not 
one  of  which  can  fail,  for,  in  respect  of  her  steadfast  uniformity, 
Nature  never  disappoints,  or,  which  is  equivalent  to  this,  the  Au- 
thor of  Nature  never  deceives  us.  The  generality  of  Nature's 
laws  is  indispensable,  both  to  the  formation  of  any  system  of 
truth  for  the  understanding,  and  to  the  guidance  of  our  actions. 
But  ere  we  can  make  such  use  of  it,  the  sense  and  the  confi- 
dent expectation  of  this  generality  must  be  previously  in  our 
minds ;  and  the  concurrence,  the  contingent  harmony  of  these 
two  elements ;  the  exquisite  adaptation  of  the  objective  to  the 
subjective,  with  the  manifest  utilities  to  which  it  is  subservient ; 
the  palpable  and  perfect  meetness  which  subsists,  between  this 
intellectual  propensity  in  man,  and  all  the  processes  of  the  out- 
ward universe — while  they  afford  incontestable  evidence  to  the 
existence  and  unity  of  that  design,  which  must  have  adjusted 
the  mental  and  the  material  formations  to  each  other,  speak 
most  decisively  in  our  estimation  both  for  the  truth  and  the  wis- 
dom of  God. 

8.  We  have  long  felt  this  close  and  unexcepted,  while  at  the 
same  time,  conti'.igent  harmony,  between  the  actual  constancy 
of  Nature  and  man's  faith  in  that  constancy,  to  be  an  effectual 
preservative  against  that  scepticism,  wliich  would  represent  the 
whole  system  of  our  thoughts  and  perceptions  to  be  founded  on 
an  illusion.  Certain  it  is,  that  beside  an  indefiaite  number  of 
truths  received  by  the  understanding  as  the  conclusions  of  a 
proof  more  or  les:^  lengthened,  there  arc  truths  recognized  with- 

things',  than  could  be  got  by  a  discourse  of  several  hours  ;  and,  while  it  informs,  it 
amuses  and  entertains  the  mind  with  such  sincrular  ])leasure  and  delight ;  it  is  of  such 
excellent  use  in  giving  a  stability  and  permanency  to  liunian  discourse,  in  recording 
sounds  and  bestowing  life  on  dead  languages,  enabling  us  to  converse  with  men  of  re- 
mote ages  and  countries ;  and  it  answers  so  apposite  to  the  uses  and  necessities  of 
mankind,  informing  us  more  distinctly  of  those  objects,  whose  nearness  or  magnitude 
qualify  them  to  be  of  greatest  detriment  or  benefit  to  our  bodies,  and  less  exactly  in 
proportion  as  their  littleness  or  distance  make  them  of  less  concern  to  us.  IJut  these 
things  are  not  strange,  they  are  familiar,  and  tliat  makes  them  to  l>e  overlooked.  Things 
which  rarely  happen  strike  •,  whereas  frequency  lessens  the  admiration  of  things, 
though  hi  themselves  ever  so  admirable.  Hence  a  common  man  who  is  not  used  to 
think  and  make  reflections,  would  probably  be  more  convinced  of  the  being  of  a  God 
by  one  single  sentence  heard  once  in  his  life  from  the  sky,  than  by.  all  the  experi- 
ence he  has  had  of  this  visual  language,  contrived  with  such  exquisite  skill,  so  con- 
stantly addressed  tohis  eyes,  and  .so  plainly  declaring  the  nearness,  wisdom,  and  pro- 
vidence of  Him  with  whom  we  have  to  do."  Minute  Philosopher.  Dialogue  IV. 
Art.  XV. 

20 


230  THE    INTELLECTUAL 

out  proof  by  an  instant  act  of  intuition — not  the  results  of  a  rea- 
soning process,  but  themselves  the  first  principles  of  all  reason- 
ing.    At  every  step  in  the  train  of  argumentation,  we  affirm  one 
thing  to  be  true,  because  of  its  logical  connexion  with  another 
thing  known  to  be  true  ;  but  as  this  process  of  derivation  is  not 
eternal,  it  is  obvious,  that,  at  the  commencement  of  at  least  some 
of  these  trains,  there  must  be  truths,  which,  instead  of  borrowinof 
their  evidence  from  others,  announce  themselves  immediately  to 
the  mind  in  an  original  and  independent  evidence  of  their  own. 
Now  they  are  these  primary  convictions  of  the  understanding, 
these  cases  of  a  behef  without  reason,  which  minister  to  the  phi- 
losophical infidelity  of  those,  who,  professing  to  have  no  depen- 
dance  on  an  instinctive  faith,  do  in  fact  alike  discard  all  truth, 
whether  demonstrated  or  undemonstrated — seeing  that  underived 
or  unreasoned  truth  must  necessarily  form  the  basis,  as  well  as 
the  continuous  cement  of  all  reasoning.     They  challenge  us  to 
account  for  these  native  and  original  convictions  of  the  mind ; 
and  affirm  that  they  may  be  as  much  due  to  an  arbitrary  organi- 
zation of  the  percipient  faculty,  as  to  the  objective  trueness  of 
the   things  which  are  perceived.     And  we  cannot  dispute  the 
possibility  of  this.     We  can  neither  establish  by  reasoning  those 
truths,  whose  situation  is,  not  any  where  in  the  stream,  but  at 
the  fountain  of  ratiocination  ;  nor  can  we  deny  that  beings  might 
have  been  so  differently  constituted,  as  that,  with  reverse  intui- 
tions to  our  own,  they  might  have  recognized  as  truths  what  we 
mstantly  recoil  from  as  falsehoods,  or  felt  to  be  absurdities  our 
first  and  foremost  principles  of  truth.     And  when  this  suspicion 
is  once  admitted,  so  as  to  shake  our  confidence  in  the  judgments 
of  the  intellect,  it  were  but  consistent  that  it  should  be  extended 
to  the  departments  both  of  morality  and  taste.      Our  impressions 
of  what  is  virtuous  or  of  what  is  fair,  may  be  regarded  as  alike 
accidental  and  arbitrary  with  our  impressions  of  what  is  true — 
being  referable  to  the  structure  of  the  mind,  and  not  to  any  ob- 
jective reality  in  the  things  which  are  contemplated.     It  is  thus 
that  the  absolutely  true,  or  good,  or  beautiful,  may  be  conceived 
of,  as  having  no  stable  or  substantive  being  in  nature  ;  and  the 
mind,  adrift  from  all  fixed  principle,  may  thus  lose  itself  in  uni- 
versal Pyrrhonism. 

9.  Nature  is  fortunately  too  strong  for  this  speculation  ;  but 
still  there  is  a  comfort  in  being  enabled  to  vindicate  the  con- 
fidence which  she  has  inspired — as  in  those  cases,  where  some 
original  principle  of  hers  admits  of  being  clearly  and  decisively 
tested.  And  it  is  so  of  our  faith  in  the  constancy  of  nature, 
met  and  responded  to,  throughout  all  her  dominions  by  nature's 
actual  constancy — the  one  being  the  expectation,  the  other  its 


CONSTITUTION    OP    MAN.  231 

rigid  and  invariable  fulfilment.  This  perliaps  is  tlie  most  palpable 
mstance  which  can  be  quoted,  of  a  belief  anterior  to  experience, 
yet  of  which  experience  aflbrds  a  mde  and  unexcepted  verifica- 
lion.  It  proves  at  least  of  one  of  our  implanted  instincts,  that  it 
is  unening ;  and  that,  over  against  a  subjective  tendency  in  the 
mind,  there  is  a  great  objective  reality  in  circumambient  nature 
to  which  it  corresponds.  This  may  well  convince  us,  that  we 
live,  not  in  a  world  of  imaginations — but  in  a  world  of  realities. 
It  is  a  noble  example  of  the  harmony  which  obtains,  between  the 
original  make  and  constitution  of  the  human  spirit  upon  the  one 
hand,  and  the  constitution  of  external  things  upon  the  other ; 
and  nobly  accredits  the  faithfulness  of  Him,  who,  as  the  Creator 
of  both,  ordained  this  happy  and  wondrous  adaptation.  The 
monstrous  suspicion  of  the  sceptics  is,  that  we  are  in  the  hands 
of  a  God,  who,  by  the  insertion  of  falsities  into  the  human  sys- 
tem, sports  himself  with  a  laborious  deception  on  the  creatures 
whom  He  has  made.  The  invariable  order  of  nature,  in  con- 
junction with  the  apprehension  of  this  invariableness  existing  in 
all  hearts  ;  the  universal  expectation  with  its  universal  fulfilment, 
is  a  triumphant  refutation  of  this  degrading  mockery — evincing, 
that  it  is  not  a  phantasmagoria  in  which  we  dwell,  but  a  world 
peopled  with  realities.  That  we  are  never  misled  in  our  in- 
stinctive belief  of  nature's  uniformity,  demonstrates  the  perfect 
safety  wherewith  we  may  commit  ourselves  to  the  guidance  of 
our  original  principles,  whether  intellectual  or  moral — assured, 
that,  instead  of  occupying  a  land  of  shadows,  a  region  of  uni- 
versal doubt  and  derision,  they  are  the  stabilities,  both  of  an 
everlasting  truth  and  an  everlasting  righteousness  with  which  we 
have  to  do. 

10.  This  lesson  obtains  a  distinct  and  additional  confirmation 
from  every  particular  instance  of  adaptation,  which  can  be  found, 
of  external  nature,  either  to  the  moral  or  intellectual  constitution 
of  man. 

11.  (2.)  To  understand  our  second  adaptation  we  must  advert 
to  the  difference  that  obtains  between  those  truths  which  are  so 
distinct  and  independent,  that  each  can  only  be  ascertained  by  a 
separate  act  of  observation ;  and  those  truths  which  are  either 
logically  or  mathematically  involved  in  each  other.*     For  ex- 

*  See  this  distinction  EidmiraHy  expounded  in  Whately's  Logic — a  work  of  pro- 
found judgment,  and  which  effectually  vindicates  the  honours  of  a  science,  that  sinco 
the  days  of  Bacon,  or  rather  (which  is  more  recent)  since  the  days  of  his  extrava- 
gant because  exclusive  authority,  it  has  been  too  much  the  fashion  to  depreci- 
ate. The  author,  if  I  might  use  the  expression  without  irreverence,  has  given  to 
Bacon  the  things  which  are  Bacon's,  and  to  Aristotle  the  things  which  are  Aristotle's. 
He  has  strengthened  the  pretensions  of  logic  by  narrowing  them — that  is,  instead  ot 
placing  all  the  intellectual  processes  under  its  direction,  by  assigning  to  it  as  itg 


232  THE    INTELLECTUAL 

ample,  there  is  no  such  dependence  between  the  colour  of  a  flower 
and  its  smell,  as  that  the  one  can  be  reasoned  from  the  other ; 
and,  in  every  different  specimen  therefore,  we,  to  ascertain  the 
two  facts  of  the  colour  and  the  smell,  must  have  recourse  to  two 
observations.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  such  a  dependence 
between  the  proposition  that  self-preservation  is  the  strongest 
and  most  general  law  of  our  nature,  and  the  proposition  that  no 
man  will  starve  if  able  and  in  circumstances  to  work  for  his  own 
maintenance — that  the  one  proposition  can  be  deduced  by  in- 
ference from  the  other,  as  the  conclusion  from  the  premises  of  aii 
argument.  And  still  more  there  is  such  a  dependence  between 
the  proposition,  that  the  planet  moves  in  an  elliptical  orbit  round 
the  sun,  having  its  focus  in  the  centre  of  that  luminary,  and  a 
thousand  other  propositions — so  that  without  a  separate  observa- 
tion for  each  of  the  latter,  they  can  be  reasoned  from  the  former ; 
just  as  an  infinity  of  truths  and  properties  can,  without  observa- 
tion, be  satisfactorily  demonstrated  of  many  a  curve  from  the 
simple  definition  of  it.  We  do  not  affirm,  that,  in  any  case,  we 
can  establish  a  dogma,  or  make  a  discovery  independently  of  all 
observation — any  more  than  in  a  syllogism  we  are  independent 
of  observation  for  the  truth  of  the  premises — both  the  major  and 
the  minor  propositions  being  generally  verified  in  this  way ;  while 
the  connexion  between  these  and  the  conclusion,  is  all,  in  the 
syllogism,  wherewith  the  art  of  logic  has  properly  to  do.  In 
none  of  the  sciences,  is  the  logic  of  itself  available  for  the  pur- 
poses of  discovery ;  and  it  can  only  contribute  to  this  object, 
when  furnished  with  sound  data,  the  accuracy  of  which  is  deter- 
mined by  observation  alone.  This  holds  particularly  true  of  the 
mixed  mathematics,  where  the  conclusions  are  sound,  only  in  as 
far  as  the  first  premises  are  sound — which  premises,  in  like 
manner,  are  not  reasoned  truths,  but  observed  truths.  Even  in 
the  pure  mathematics,  some  obscurely  initial  or  rudimental  pro- 
cess of  observation  may  have  been  necessary,  ere  the  mind  could 
arrive  at  its  first  conceptions,  either  of  quantity  or  number. 
Certain  it  is,  however,  that,  in  all  the  sciences,  however  de- 
pendent on  observation  for  the  original  data,  we  can,  by  reason- 
proper  subject  the  art  of  deduction  alone.  He  has  made  most  correct  distinction 
between  the  inductive  and  the  logical  ;  and  it  is  by  attending  to  the  respective  pro- 
vinces of  each,  that  we  come  to  perceive  the  incompetency  of  mere  logic  for  the  pur- 
pose of  discovery  strictly  so  called.  The  whole  chapter  on  discovery  is  particu- 
larly valuable — leading  us  clearly  to  discriminate  between  that  which  logic  can,  and 
that  which  it  cannot  achieve.  It  is  an  instrument,  not  for  the  discovery  of  truth  pro- 
perly new,  but  for  the  discovery  of  truths  which  are  enveloped  or  virtually  contained 
in  propositions  already  known.  It  instructs  but  does  not  inform  ;  and  has  nought 
to  do  in  syllogism  with  the  truth  of  the  premises,  but  only  with  the  truth  of  the  con- 
ne.xion  between  the  premises  and  the  conclusion. 


CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  233 

ing  on  the  data,  establish  an  indefinite  number  of  distinct  and 
important  and  useful  propositions — .which,  if  soundly  made  out, 
observation  will  afterwards  verify ;  but  which,  anterior  to  the 
application  of  this  test,  the  mind,  by  its  own  excogitations,  may 
have  made  the  objects  of  its  most  legitimate  conviction.     It  is 
thus  that,  on  the  one  hand,  we,  by  the  inferences  of  a  sound 
logic,  can,  on  an  infinity  of  subjects,  discover  what  should  for 
ever  have  remained  unknown,  had  it  been  left  to  the  findings  of 
direct  observation  ;  and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  though  obser- 
vation could  not  have  made  the  discovery,  it  never  fails  to  attest 
it.     Visionaries,  on  the  one  hand,  may  spurn  at  the  ignoble  pa- 
tience and  drudgery  of  observers ;  and  ignorant  practitioners, 
whether  in  the  walks  of  business  or  legislation,  may,  on  the 
other,  raise  their  senseless  and  indiscriminate  outcrv  against  the 
reasoners — but  he  who  knows  to  distinguish  between  an  hypo- 
thesis based  on  imagination,  and  a  theory  based  on  experience, 
and  [)erceives  how  helpless  either  reason  or  observation  is,  when 
not  assisted  by  the  other,  will  know  how  to  assign  the  parts,  and 
to  estimate  the  prerogatives  of  both. 

12.  When  the  mind  has  retired  from  direct  converse  with  the 
external  world,  and  brought  to  its  own  inner  chamber  of 
thought  the  materials  which  it  has  collected  there,  it  then  deli- 
vers itself  up  to  its  own  process — first  ascending  analytically 
from  observed  phenomena  to  principles,  and  then  descending 
synthetically  from  principles  to  yet  unobserved  phenomena. 
We  cannot  but  recognize  it  as  an  exquisite  adaptation  between 
the  subjective  and  the  objective,  betw6en  the  mental  and  the 
material  systems — that  the  results  of  the  abstract  intellectual 
process  and  the  realities  of  external  nature  should  so  strikingly 
harmonize.*     It  is  exemplified  in  all  the  sciences,  in  the  econo- 

^  Tliere  arc  some  fine  remarks  by  Sir  John  Herscliell  in  his  prcliminarv  discourse 
on  the  study  of  Natural  Philosopliy  on  this  adaptation  of  the  abslract  ideas  to  the  con- 
crete realities,  of  the  discoveries  made  in  the  region  of  pure  thought  to  the  facts  and 
phenomena  ©factual  nature — as  when  the  properties  of  conic  sections,  demonstrated 
hy  a  laborious  analysis,  remained  inapplicable  till  they  came  to  be  embodied  in  the 
real  masses  and  movements  of  astronomy. 

"  These  marvellous  computations  might  almost  seem  to  have  been  devised  on  pur- 
pose to  show  how  closely  tliC  extremes  of  speculative  refinement  and  practical  utility 
can  be  brought  to  approximate,"     HerscheiFs  Discourse,  p.  28. 

"  They  show  how  large  a  part  pure  reason  has  to  perform  in  the  examination  of 
nature,  and  how  implicit  our  reliance  ought  to  be  on  tliat  powerful  and  methodical 
system  of  rules  and  processes,  which  constitute   the  modern  mathematical   analysis, 
in  all  the  more  difficult  applications  of  exact  calculation  to  her  phenomena."     p.  33. 

"Almost  all  the  great  combinations  of  modem  mechanism  and  many  of  its  re- 
fmements  and  nicer  improvements,  are  creations  of  pure  intellect,  grounding  its  ex- 
ertion upon  a  very  moderate  number  of  elementary  propositions,  in  theoretical  me- 
chanics and  geometry."  p.  63. 

The  discovery  of  the  principle  of  the  achromatic  telescope,  is   termed  by  Sir  John 


234  THE    INTELLECTUAL 

mical,  and  the  mental,  and  the  physical,  and  most  of  all  in  the 
physico-mathematical — as  when  Newton,  on  the  calculations 
and  profound  musings  of  his  solitude,  predicted  the  oblate 
spheroidal  figure  of  the  earth,  and  the  prediction  was  confirmed 
by  the  mensurations  of  the  academicians,  both  in  the  polar 
and  equatorial  regions,  or  as,  when  abandoning  himself  to  the 
devices  and  the  diagrams  of  his  own  construction,  he  thence 
scanned  the  cycles  of  the  firmament,  and  elicited  from  the  scroll 
of  enigmatical  characters  which  himself  had  framed,  the  secrets 
of  a  sublime  astronomy,  that  high  field  so  replete  with  wonders, 
yet  surpassed  by  this  greatest  wonder  of  all,  the  intellectual  mas- 
tery which  man  has  over  it.  That  such  a  feeble  creature  should 
have  made  this  conquest — that  a  light  struck  out  in  the  little 
cell  of  his  own  cogitations  should  have  led  to  a  disclosure  so 
magnificent— that  by  a  calculus  of  his  own  formation,  as  with 
the  power  of  a  talisman,  the  heavens,  with  their  stupendous 
masses  and  untrodden  distances,  should  have  thus  been  opened 
to  his  gaze — can  only  be  explained  by  the  intervention  of  a 
Being  having  supremacy  over  all,  and  who  has  adjusted  the 
laws  of  matter  and  the  properties  of  mmd  to  each  other. 
It  is  only  thus  we  can  be  made  to  understand,  how  mr.u  by 
the  mere  workings  of  his  spirit,  should  have  penetrated  so  far 
into  the  workmanship  of  Nature  ;  or  that,  restricted  though  he 
be  to  a  spot  of  earth,  he  should  nevertheless  tell  of  the  suns  and 
the  systems  that  be  afar — as  if  he  had  travelled  Mith  the  line 
and  plummet  in  his  hand  to  the  outskirts  of  creation,  or  carried 
the  torch  of  discoverv  round  the  universe. 

13.  (3.)  Our  next  adaptation  is  most  notably  exemplified  in 
those  cases,  when  some  isolated  phenomenon,  remote  and 
having  at  first  no  conceivable  relation  to  human  affairs,  is 
nevertheless  converted  by  the  plastic  and  productive  intellect  of 
man,  into  some  application  of  mighty  and  important  effect  on  the 
interests  of  the  world.  One  example  of  this  is  the  use  that  has  been 
made  of  the  occultations  and  emersions  of  Jupiter's  satellites,  in 
(he  compvitation  of  longitudes,  and  so  the  perfecting  of  naviga- 
tion. When  one  contemplates  a  subserviency  of  this  sort  fetch- 
ed to  us  from  afar,  it  is  difficult  not  to  imagine  of  it  as  being  the 
fruit  of  some  special  adjustment,  that  came  within  the  purpose 
of  Him,  who,  in  constructing  the  vast  mechanism  of  Nature, 
overlooked  not  the  humblest  of  its  parts — but  incorporated  the 
good  of  our  species,  with  the  wider  generalities  and  laws   of  a 


"  a  memorable  case  in  science,  though  not  a  singular  one,  where  the  speculative 
geometer  in  his  chamber,  apart  from  the  world,  and  existing  among  abstractions, 
has  originated  views  of  the  noblest  practical  application."     p.  255. 


CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  235 

universal  system.*  The  conclusion  is  rather  enhanced  than 
otherwise  by  the  seemingly  incidental  way  in  which  the  teles- 
cope was  discovered.  The  observation  of  the  polarity  of  the 
magnet  is  an  example  of  the  same  kind — and  with  the  same 
result,  in  multiplying,  by  an  enlarged  commerce  the  enjoyments 
of  life,  and  speeding  onward  the  science  and  civilization  of  the 
globe.  There  cannot  a  purer  instance  be  given,  of  adapta- 
tion between  external  nature  and  the  mind  of  man — than  when 
some  material,  that  would  have  remained  for  ever  useless  in  the 
hands  of  the  unintelligent  and  unthoughtful,  is  converted,  by  the 
fertility  and  power  of  the  human  understanding,  into  an  instru- 
ment for  the  further  extension  of  our  knowledo;e  or  our  means 
of  gratification.  The  prolongation  of  their  eyesight  to  the  aged 
by  the  means  of  convex  lenses,  made  from  a  substance  at  once 

*  The  author  of  the  Natural  History  of  Entnusiasni,  in  his  edition  of  Edward's 
treatise  on  the  will,  presents  us  with  the  following  energetic  sentences  on  this  subject. 

"  Every  branch  of  modern  science  abounds  with  instances  of  remote  correspon- 
dences between  the  great  system  of  the  world,  and  the  artificial  {the  truly  natural) 
condition  to  which  knowledge  raises  him.  If  these  correspondences  were  single  or 
rare  they  might  be  deemed  merely  fortuitous  ;  like  the  drifting  of  a  plank  athwart 
the  track  of  one  who  is  swimming  from  a  wreck.  But  when  they  meet  us  on  all 
sides  and  invariably,  we  must  be  resolute  in  atheism  not  to  confess  that  they  are 
emanations  from  one  and  the  same  centre  of  wisdom  and  goodness.  Is  it  nothinir 
more  than  a  lucky  accommodation  which  makes  the  polarity  of  the  needle  to  sub- 
serve the  purposfif  of  the  mariner  ?  or  may  it  not  safely  be  atfirmcd,  both  that  the 
magnetic  influence  (whatever  its  primary  intention  may  be)  had  reference  to  the 
business  of  navigation — a  reference  incalculably  important  to  the  spread  and  im- 
j)rovcmcnt  of  the  human  race ;  and  that  the  discovery  and  the  application  of  this 
influence  arrived  at  the  destined  moment  in  the  revolution  of  human  affairs,  when  in 
combination  with  other  events,  it  would  produce  the  greatest  effect  ?  Nor  should 
we  scruple  to  affirm  that  the  relation  between  the  inclination  of  the  earth's  axis  and 
the  conspicuous  star  which,  without  a  near  rival,  attracts  even  the  eye  of  the  vulgar, 
and  shows  the  north  to  the  wanderer  on  the  wilderness  or  on  the  ocean,  is  in  like 
manner  a  beneficent  arrangement.  Those  who  would  spurn  the  supposition  that 
the  celestial  locality  of  a  sun  immeasurably  remote  from  our  system,  should  have 
reference  to  the  accommodation  of  the  inhabitants  of  a  planet  so  inconsiderable  as 
our  own,  forget  the  style  of  the  Divine  Works,  which  is,  to  serve;  some  great  or 
principal  end,  compatibly  with  ten  thousand  lesser  and  remote  interests.  Man  if  he 
would  secure  the  greater,  must  neglect  or  sacrifice  the  less  ;  not  so  the  Omnipotent 
Contriver.  It  is  a  fact  full  of  meaning,  that  those  astronomical  phenomena  (and  so 
others)  which  offer  themselves  as  available  for  the  pur})Oses  of  art,  as  for  instance 
of  navitralion,  or  geography,  do  not  fully  or  effectively  yield  the  end  they  promise, 
until  ailer  long  and  elaborate  jtrucesses  of  calculation  have  disentangled  them  from 
variations,  disturbing  forces  and  apparent  irregularities.  To  the  rude  fact,  if  so  wo 
might  designate  it,  a  mass  of  recondite  science  must  be  appended,  before  it  can  be 
brought  to  bear  Avith  precision  upon  the  arts  of  life.  Thus  the  polarity  of  the  needle 
or  the  eclipses  of  Jupiter's  moons  are  as  nothing  to  the  mariner,  or  the  geographer, 
without  the  voluminous  commentary  furnished  by  the  mathematics  of  astronomy. 
The  fact  of  the  expansivi;  force  of  steam  must  employ  the  intelligence  and  energy  ol 
the  mechanicians  of  an  empire,  during  a  century,  before  the  whole  of  its  beneficial 
powers  can  be  put  in  activity.  Chemical,  medical,  and  botanical  science  is  filled 
with  parallel  instances  ;  and  they  all  affirm,  in  an  articulate  marmer,  the  two-fold 
purpose  of  the  Creator — to  benefit  man  and  to  educate  him. 


236  THE    INTELLECTUAL 

transparent  and  colourless — the  force  of  steam  with  the  manifold 
and  ever  growing  applications  which  are  made  of  it — the  disco- 
very of  platina,  which,  by  its  resistance  to  the  fiercest  heats,  is 
so  available  in  prosecuting  the  ulterior  researches   of  chemis- 
try*— even  the  very  abundance  and  portability  of  those  mate- 
rials by  which  written  characters  can  be  multiplied,  and,  through 
the  impulse  thus  given  to  the  quick   and  copious   circulation  of 
human   thoughts,   mind    acts    with  rapid   diffusion    upon  mind 
though  at  the  distance  of  a  hemisphere  from  each  other,  concep- 
tions  and  informations   and   reasonings  these  products  of  the 
intellect  alone    being   made    to   travel   over    the    world   by  the 
intervention   of  material  substances — these,    "vvhile    but    them- 
selves only  a  few  taken  at  random  from  the  iiiultitude  of  stiictly 
appropriate   specimens   which  could  be   alleged  of  an  adapta- 
tion between  the  systems  of  mind  and  matter,   are   sufficient  to 
mark  an  obvious  contrivance   and  forth-putting   of  skill  in   the 
adjustment  of  the  systems  to  each  other.     Enough  has  been 
already   done  to   prove  of  mind  with  its  various  po\^•er^^,   that 
it   is  the  fittest   agent  which  could   have    been  employed  for 
working  upon  matter  ;  and  of  matter,  with  its  various   properties 
and  combinations,  that  it  is   the  fittest  instrument  ^^hich  ci^uld 
have  been  placed  under  the  disposal  of  mind.       Every   new 
triumph  achieved  by  the  human  intellect   over  external    nature, 
whether  in  the  way  of  discovery  or  of  art,   serves  to  make  the 
proof  more  illusti-ious.     In  the  indefinite  progress  of  science 
and  invention,  the  mastery    of  man  over  the  elements   which 
surround    him  is  every  year  becoming   more  conspicuous — the 
pure  result  of  adaptatiori,  or  of  the  way  in  which  mind  and  mat- 
ter have  been  conformed  to    each  other ;  the  first  endowed    by 
the  Creator  with  those  powers  which  qualify  it  to  command  ;    the 
second  no  less  evidently  endowed  with  those  corresponding  sus- 
ceptibilities which  cause  it  to  obey. 

14.  (4.)  The  way  is  now  prepared  for  our  next  adaptation 
which  hinges  upon  this — that  the  highest  efforts  of  intellectual 
power,  and  to  which  few  men  are  competent ;  the  most  difficult 

+  This  among  many  such  lessons  will  teach  us  that  the  most  important  uses  of  na- 
tural objects  are  not  those  which  offer  themselves  to  us  most  obviously.  The  chief 
t«e  of  the  moon  for  man's  immediate  purposes  remained  unknown  to  him  for  fivQ 
thousand  years  from  his  creation.  And  since  it  cannot  but  be  that  innumerable  and 
most  important  uses  remain  to  be  discovered  among  the  materials  and  objects  already 
known  to  us,  as  well  as  among  those  which  the  progress  of  science  must  hereafter 
disclose,  we  may  here  conceive  a  well-grounded  expectation,  not  only  of  constant 
increase  in  the  physical  resources  of  mankind,  and  the  consequent  improvement  of 
their  condition,  but  of  continual  accessions  to  our  power  of  penetrating  into  the  arcana 
of  nature,  and  becoming  acquainted  with  her  highest  laws.  Sir  John  Herschell's 
Discourse,  p.  308,  309. 


CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  237 

intellectual  process,  requiring  the  utmost  abstractioti  and  leisure 
for  their  developement,  are  often  indispensable  to   discoveries, 
which,  when  once  made,  are  found  capable  of  those  useful  appli- 
cations, the  value  of  which  is  felt  and  recognized  by  all  men. 
The  most  arduous  mathematics  had  to  be  put  into  requisition, 
for  the  establishment  of  the  lunar  theory — without  which  our  pre- 
sent lunar  observations  could  have  been  of  no  use  for  the  deter- 
mination of  the  longitude.     This  dependence  of  the  popular  and 
the  practical  on  an  anterior  profound  science  runs  through  much 
of  the  business  of  life,  in  the  mechanics  and  chemistry  of  manu- 
factures as  well  as  in  navigation  ;   and  indeed  is  more  or  less 
exemplified  so  widely,  or  rather  universally,  throughout  the  va- 
rious departments  of  human  industry  and  art,  that  it  most  essen- 
tially contributes  to  the  ascendency  of  mind  over  muscular  force 
in  society — beside  securing  for  mental  qualities,  the  willing  and 
reverential  homage  of  the  nmltitude.     This   peculiar  influence 
stands  complicated  with  other  arrangements,  requiring  a  multifa- 
rous  combination,  that  speaks  all  the  more  emphatically  for  a 
presiding  intellect,  which  must  have  devised  and  calculated  the 
whole.     We  have  already  stated,*  by  what  peculiarity  in  the  soil 
it  was,  that  a  certain  number  of  the  species  was  exempted  from 
the  necessity  of  labour  ;  and  without  which,  in  fact,  all  science 
and  civilization  would  have  been  impossible.     We  have    also 
expounded  in  some  degree  the  principle,  which  both  originated 
the  existing  arrangements  of  property,  and  lead  men  to  acquiesce 
in  them.      But  still  it  is  a  precarious  acquiescence,  and  liable  to 
be  disturbed  by  many  operating  causes  of  distress  and  discon- 
tent in  society.     If  there  be  influences  on  the  side  of  the  esta- 
blished order  of  things,  there  are  also  counteractive  influences 
on  the  opposite  side,  of  revolt  and  irritation  against  it ;  and  by 
which,  the  natural  reverence  of  men  for  rank  and  station,  may 
at  length  be  overborne.     In  the  progress  of  want  and  demoral- 
ization among  the  people,  in  the  pressure  of  their  increasing 
numbers,  by  which,  they  at  once  outgrow  the  means  of  instruc- 
tion, and  bear  more  heavily  on  the  resources  of  the  land  than 
before  ;  in  the  felt  straitness  of  their  condition,  and  the  propor- 
tionate   vehemence    of    their   aspirations    after    enlargement — 
nothing  is  easier  than  to  give  them  a  factitious  sense  of  their 
wrongs,  and  to  inspire  them  with  the  wrankling  imagination  of  a 
heartless  and  haughty  indifference  on  the  part  of  their  lordly  su- 
periors towards  them,  whose  very  occupation  of  wealth,  they  may 
be  taught  to  regard  as  a  monopoly,  the  breaking  down  of  which 
were  an  act  of  generous  patriotism.     Against  these  brooding 

*  Part  I.  c.  VI.  29. 


238  THE    INTELLECTUAL 

elements  of  revolution  in  the  popular  mind,  the  most  effectual 
preservative  certainly,  were  the  virtue  of  the  upper  classes, — or 
that  our  great  men  should  be  good  men.  But  a  mighty  help  to 
this,  and  next  to  it  in  importance  were,  that  to  the  power  which 
lies  in  wealth,  they  should  superadd  the  power  which  lies  in 
knowledge — or  that  the  vulgar  superiority  of  mere  affluence  and 
station,  should  be  strengthened  in  a  way  that  would  command 
the  willing  homage  of  all  spirits,  that  is,  by  the  mental  superiority 
which  their  opportunities  of  lengthened  and  laborious  education 
enable  them  to  acquire.  By  a  wise  ordination  of  Nature,  the 
possessors  of  rank  and  fortune,  simply  as  such,  have  a  certani 
ascendant  power  over  their  fellows  ;  and,  by  the  same  ordination, 
the  possessors  of  learning  have  an  ascendency  also — and  it 
would  mightily  conduce  to  the  strength  and  stability  of  the  com- 
monwealth, if  these  influences  were  conjoined,  or,  in  other  words, 
if  the  scale  of  wealth  and  the  scale  of  intelligence,  in  as  far  as 
that  was  dependent  on  literary  culture,  could  be  made  to  harmo- 
nize. The  constitution  of  science,  or  the  adaptation  which  ob- 
tains between  the  objects  of  knowledge  and  the  Imowing  facul- 
ties, is  singularly  favourable  to  the  alliance  for  which  we  now 
plead — insomuch  that,  to  sound  the  depths  of  philosophy,  time 
and  independence  and  exemption  from  the  cares  and  labours  of 
ordinary  life  seem  indispensable  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  pro- 
found discoveries,  or  a  profound  acquaintance  v/ith  them,  are 
sure  to  command  a  ready  deference  even  from  the  multitude, 
whether  on  account  of  the  natural  respect  which  all  men  feel  for 
pre-eminent  understanding,  or  on  account  of  the  palpable  utilities 
to  which,  in  a  system  of  tilings  so  connected  as  ours,  even  the 
loftiest  and  most  recondite  science  is  found  to  be  subservient. 
On  the  same  principle  that,  in  a  ship,  the  skilful  navigation  of  its 
captain  will  secure  for  him  the  prompt  obedience  of  the  crew  to 
all  his  directions  ;*  or  that,  in  an  army,  the  consummate  general- 

+  We  have  before  us  an  anecdote  communicated  to  us  by  a  naval  officer,  (Captain 
Basil  Hall,)  distinguished  for  the  extent  and  variety  of  his  attainments,  which  shows 
how  impressive  such  results  may  become  in  practice.  He  sailed  from  San  Bias  on 
the  west  coast  of  Mexico,  and  after  a  voyage  of  8000  miles,  occupying  eighty-nine 
days,  arrived  off  Rio  Janeiro,  having  in  this  interval  passed  through  the  Pacific  Ocean, 
rounded  Cape  Horn,  and  crossed  the  South  Atlantic,  without  making  any  land,  or 
even  seeincr  a  single  sail,  with  the  exception  of  an  American  whaler  off  Cape  Horn. 
Arrived  within  a  week's  sail  of  Rip,  he  set  seriously  about  determining,  by  lunar  ob- 
servations, the  precise  line  of  the  ship's  course,  and  its  situation  in  it  at  a  determinate 
moment,  and  having  ascertained  this  within  from  five  to  ten  miles,  ran  the  rest  of  the 
way  by  those  more  ready  and  compendious  methods,  known  to  navigators,  which  can 
be  safely  employed  for  short  trips  between  one  known  point  and  another,  but  which 
cannot  be  trusted  in  long  voyages,  where  the  moon  is  their  only  guide.  The  rest  of 
the  tale  we  are  enabled  by  his  kindness  to  state  in  his  own  words  : — "  We  steered 
towards  Rio  .Janeiro  for  some  days  after  taking  the  lunars  above  described,  and  hav- 
ing arrived  within  fifteen  or  twenty  miles  of  the  coast,  I  hove-to  till  four  in  the  morning 


CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  239 

ship  of  its  commander  will  subordinate  all  the  movements  of  the 
immense  host,  to  the  power  of  one  controlling  and  actuating  will 
— so,  in  general  society,  did  wealth  by  means  of  a  thorough 
scholarship  on  the  part  of  the  higher  classes,  but  maintain  an 
intimate  fellowship  with  wisdom  and  sound  philosophy — then, 
with  the  same  conservative  influence  as  in  these  other  examples, 
would  the  intellectual  ascendency  thus  acquired,  be  found  of 
mighty  effect,  to  consolidate  and  maintain  all  the  gradations  of  the 
commonwealth. 

15.  It  is  thus  that  a  vain  and  frivolous  aristocracy,  averse  to 
severe  intellectual  discipline,  and  beset  with  the  narrow  preju- 
dices of  an  order,  let  themselves  down  from  that  high  vantage- 
ground  on  which  fortune  hath  placed  them — where,  by  a  right  use 
of  the  capabilities  belonging  to  the  state  in  which  they  were  born, 
they  might  have  kept  their  firm  footing  to  the  latest  generations. 
Did  all  truth  lie  at  the  surface  of  observation,  and  it  was  alike  ac- 
cessible to  all  men,  diey  could  not  with  such  an  adaptation  of  ex- 
ternal nature  to  man's  intellectual  constitution,  have  realized  the 
pecuhar  advantage  on  which  we  are  now  insisting.  But  it  is  be- 
cause there  is  so  much  of  important  and  applicable  truth,  which 
lies  deep  and  hidden  under  the  surface,  and  which  can  only  be 
appropriated  by  men,  who  combine  unbounded  leisure  with  the 
habit  or  determination  of  strenuous  mental  cfTort — it  is  only  be- 
cause of  such  an  adaptation,  that  they  who  are  gifted  with  property 
are,  as  a  class,  gifted  with  the  means,  if  they  would  use  it,  of  a 
great  intellectual  superiority  over  the  rest  of  the  species.  There 
is  a  strong  natural  veneration  for  wealth,  and  also  a  strong  natural 
veneration  for  wisdom.  It  is  by  the  union  of  the  two  that  the 
horrors  of  revolutionary  violence,  might  for  ever  be  averted  from 
the  land.  Did  our  high-born  children  of  affluence,  for  every  ten 
among  them,  the  mere  loungers  of  effeminacy  and  fashion,  or  the 
mere  lovers  of  sport  and  sensualit}'^  and  splendour — did  they,  for 

when  the  day  should  break,  and  then  bore  up  ;  for  althougli  it  was  very  hazy,  we  could 
see  before  us  a  couple  of  miles  or  so.  About  eight  o'clock  it  became  so  foggy  that  I 
did  not  like  to  stand  in  farther,  and  was  just  bringing  the  ship  to  the  wind  again  before 
sendinor  the  people  to  breakfast,  when  it  suddenly  cleared  off,  and  T  had  the  satisfaction 
of  seeing  the  great  sugar-loaf  peak,  which  stands  on  one  side  of  the  harbour's  mouth, 
so  nearly  right  a-head  that  we  ha3  not  to  alter  our  course  above  a  point,  in  order  to  hit 
the  entrance  of  Rio.  This  was  the  first  land  we  had  seen  for  three  months,  after  cross- 
\na  so  many  seas,  and  being  set  backwards  and  forwards  by  innumerable  currents  and 
foul  winds."  "  The  effect  on  all  on  board  might  v.-ell  be  conceived  to  have  been  elec- 
tric ;  and  it  is  needless  to  remark  how  essentially  the  auUiority  of  a  commanding  offi- 
cer over  his  crew  may  be  strengthened  by  the  occurrence  of  such  incidents,  indicative 
of  a  decree  of  knowledge  and  consequent  power  beyond  their  reach." — Herschell's 
Discourse,  p.  28,  29. 

It  is  an  extreme  instance  of  th^  connexion  between  mental  power  and  civil  or  po- 
litical ascendency,  though  oflen  verified  in  the  history  of  the  world — that  military  sci- 
ence has  often  led  to  the  establishment  of  a  military  despotism. 


240  THE    INTELLECTUAL 

every  ten  of  such,  furnish  but  one  enamoured  of  higher  gymnas- 
tics, the  gymnastics  of  the  mind ;  and  who  accompHshed  him- 
self for  the  work  and  warfare  of  the  senate,  by  his  deep  and  com- 
prehensive views  in  all  the  proper  sciences  of  a  statesman,  the 
science  of  government,  and  politics,  and  commerce,  and  eco- 
nomics, and  history,  and  human  nature, — by  a  few  gigantic  men 
among  them,  thus  girded  for  the  services  of  patriotism,  a  nation 
might  be  saved — because  arrested  on  that  headlong  descent, 
which,  at  the  impulse  of  the  popular  will,  it  might  else  have  made, 
from  one  measure  of  fair  but  treacherous  promise,  from  one  ru- 
inous plausibihty  to  another.  The  thing  most  to  be  dreaded,  is  that 
hasty  and  superficial  legislation,  into  which  a  government  may 
be  humed  by  the  successive  onsets  of  public  impatience,  and 
under  the  impulse  of  a  popular  and  prevailing  cry.  Now  the  thing 
most  needed,  as  a  counteractive  to  this  evil,  is  a  thoroughly  in- 
tellectual parliament,  where  shall  predominate  Ihat  masculine 
sense  which  has  been  trained  for  act  and  application  by  mascu- 
line studies  ;  and  where  the  silly  watch-word  of  theory  shall  not 
be  employed,  as  heretofore,  to  overbear  the  lessons  of  soundly 
generaUzed  truth — because  instead  of  being  discerned  at  a  glance, 
they  are  fetched  from  the  depths  of  philosophic  observation,  or 
shone  upon  by  lights  from  afar,  in  the  accumulated  experience 
of  ages.  We  have  infinitely  more  to  apprehend  from  the  dema- 
gogues than  from  the  doctrinaires  of  our  present  crisis ;  and  it 
will  require  a  far  profounder  attention  to  the  principles  of  every 
question  than  many  deem  to  be  necessary,  or  than  almost  any  are 
found  to  bestow,  to  save  us  from  the  crudities  of  a  blindfold  legis- 
lation.* 

*  This  mental  superiority  which  the  higher  classes  might  and  ought  to  cuhivate,  is 
not  incompatible,  but  the  contrary,  with  a  general  ascent  in  the  scholarship  of  the  po- 
jwlation  at  large.  On  this  subject  we  have  elsewhere  said— that  "  there  is  a  bigotry 
on  the  side  of  endowed  seminaries  which  leads  those  wliom  it  actuates  to  be  jealous  of 
popular  institutions.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  generous  feeling  towards 
these  institutions,  which  is  often  accompanied  with  a  certain  despite  towards  the  en- 
dowed and  established  seminaries.  W^e  tliink  that  a  more  comprehensive  considera- 
tion of  the  actings  and  reactings  which  take  place  in  society,  should  serve  to  abate 
llie  heats  of  this  partizanship,  and  that  what  in  one  view  is  regarded  as  the  conflict  of 
jarring  and  hostile  elements,  should,  in  another,  be  rejoiced  in  as  a  limiinous  concourse 
of  influences,  tending  to  accomplisli  the  grand  and  beneficent  result  of  an  enlightened 
nation.  It  is  just  because  we  wish  so  well  to  colleges,  that  we  hail  the  prosperity 
of  mechanic  institutions.  The  latter  will  never  outrun  the  former,  but  so  stimulate 
them  onwards,  that  the  literature  of  our  higher  classes  shall  hold  the  same  relative 
advancement  as  before  over  the  literature  of  our  artizans.  It  will  cause  no  derange- 
ment  and  no  disproportion.  The  liglit  whicli  shall  then  overspread  the  floor  of  the 
social  edifice,  will  only  cause  the  lustres  which  are  in  the  higher  apartments  to  blaze 
more  gorgeously.  The  basement  of  the  fabric  will  be  greatly  more  elevated,  yet  with- 
out violence  to  the  symmetry  of  the  whole  architecture  ;  for  the  pinnacles  and  upper 
stories  of  the  building  will  rise  as  proudly  and  as  gracefully  as  ever  above  the  platform 
which  sustains  them.     There  is  indefinite  room  in  trutli  and  science  for  an  ascending 


\ 
CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  241 

16.  And  it  augurs  portentously  for  the  coming  destinies  of  our 
land,  that,  in  the  present  rage  for  economy,  such  an  indiscrimi- 
nate havock  should  have  been  made — so  that  pensions  and  en- 
dowments for  the  reward  or  encouragement  of  science,  should 
have  had  the  same  sentence  of  extinction  passed  upon  them,  as 
the  most  worthless  sinecures.     The  difficulties  of  our  most  sub- 
lime, and  often  too  our  most  useful  knowledge,  make  it  inacces- 
sible to  all  but  to  those  who  are  exempt  from  the  care  of  their 
own  maintenance — so  that  unless  a  certain,  though  truly  insig- 
nificant portion  of  the  country's  wealth,  be  expended  in  this  way, 
all  high  and  transcendental  philosophy,  however  conducive  as  it 
often  is  to  the  strength  as  well  as  glory  of  a  nation  must  vanish 
from  the  land.     When  the  original  possessors  of  wealth  neglect 
individually  this  application  of  it;  and,  whether  from  indolence 
or  the  love  of  pleasure,  fall  short  of  that  superiority  in  mental  cul- 
ture, of  which  the  means  have  been  put  into  their  hands — we 
can  only  reproach  their  ignoble  preference,  and  lament  the  as- 
cendant force  of  sordid  and  merely  animal  propensities,  over  the 
principles  of  their  better  and  higher  nature.     But  when  that  which 
individuals  do  in  slavish  compliance  with  their  indolence  and  pas- 
sions, the  state  is  also  found  to  do  in  the  exercise  of  its  deUbera- 
tive  wisdom,  and  on  the  maxims  of  a  settled  policy — when  instead 
of  ordaining  any  new  destination  of  wealth  in  favour  of  science, 
it  would  divorce  and  break  asunder  the  goodly  aUiance  by  a  re- 
morseless attack  on  the  destinations  of  wiser  and  better  days — 
such  a  gothic  spoliation  as  this,  not  a  deed  of  lawless  cupidity  but 
the  mandate  of  a  senate-house,  were  a  still  more  direct  and  glaring- 
contravention  to  the  wisdom  of  Nature,  and  to  the  laws  of  that 
economy  which  Nature  hath  instituted.    The  adaptation  of  which 
we  now  speak,  between  the  external  system  of  the  universe,  and 
the  intellectual  system  of  man,  were  grossly  violated  by  such  an 
outrage  ;  and  it  is  a  violence  which  Nature  would  resent  by  one 
'  of  those  signal  chastisements,  the  examples  of  which  are  so  fre- 
quent in  history.     The  truth  is  that,  viewed  as  a  manifestation 
of  the  popular  will,  which  tumultuates  against  all  that  wont  to  con\- 

movemcnt,  and  the  taking  up  of  higher  positions ;  and  if,  in  virtue  of  a  popular  plillo- 
sophy  now  taught  in  schools  of  art,  we  are  to  have  more  lettered  mechanics,  this  will 
be  instantly  followed  up  by  a  higher  philosophy  in  colleges  than  heretofore  ;  and  in 
virtue  of  which  we  shall  also  have  a  more  accomplished  gentry,  a  more  intellectual 
parliament,  a  more  erudite  clergy,  and  altogether  a  greater  force  and  fulness  of  mind 
throughout  all  the  departments  of  the  commonwealth.  The  whole  of  society  will  as- 
cend together,  and  therefore  without  disturbance  to  the  relation  of  its  parts.  But,  in 
every  stage  of  this  progress,  the  endowed  colleges  will  continue  to  be  the  highest 
places  of  intellect ;  the  coimtry's  richest  lore  and  its  most  solid  and  severest  philosophy 
will  always  be  found  in  them."  Use  and  Abuse  of  Literary  and  Ecclesiastical  En- 
dowments. 

21 


242  THE    INTELLECTUAL 

mand  the  respect  and  admiration  of  society,  and  is  strong  enough 
to  enforce  its  dictations — it  may  well  be  regarded,  as  one  of  the 
deadliest  symptoms  of  a  nation  ripening  for  anarchy,  that  dread 
consummation,  by  which  however,  the  social  state,  relieved  of 
its  distempers,  is  at  length  renovated  like  the  atmosphere  by  a 
storm,  after  throwing  off  from  it,  the  dregs  and  the  degeneracy 
of  an  iron  age.* 

17.  (5.)  We  shall  do  little  more  than  state  two  other  adapta- 
tions, although  more  might  be  noticed,  and  all  do  admit  of  a 
much  fuller  elucidation  than  we  can  bestow  upon  them.  And 
first,  there  is  a  countless  diversity  of  sciences,  and  correspondent 
to  this,  a  Hke  diversity  in  the  tastes  and  talents  of  men,  present- 
ing, therefore,  a  most  beneficial  adaptation,  between  the  objects 
of  human  knowledge  and  the  powers  of  human  knowledge. 
Even  in  one  science  there  are  often  many  subdivisions,  each  re- 
quiring a  separate  mental  fitness,  on  the  part  of  those,  who  might 
select  it  as  their  own  favourite  walk,  which  they  most  love,  and 
in  which  they  are  best  qualified  to  excel.  In  most  of  the  physi- 
cal sciences,  how  distinct  the  business  of  the  observation  is  from 
that  of  the  philosophy;  and  how  important  to  their  progress, 
that,  for  each  appropriate  work,  there  should  be  men  of  appro- 
priate faculties  or  habits,  who  in  the  execufion  of  their  respec- 
tive tasks,  do  exceedingly  multiply  and  enlarge  the  products  of 
the  mind — even  as  the  grosser  products  of  human  industry  are 
multiplied  by  the  subdivision  of  employment. |  It  is  well,  that, 
for  that  infinite  variety  of  intellectual  pursuits,  necessary  to  ex- 
plore all  the  recesses  of  a  various  and  complicated  external  na- 
ture, there  should  be  a  like  variety  of  intellectual  predilections  and 
powers  scattered  over  the  species — a  congruity  between  the 
world  of  mind  and  the  world  of  matter,  of  the  utmost  importance, 
both  to  the  perfecting  of  art,  and  to  the  progress  and  perfecting  of 
science.  Yet  it  is  marvellous  of  these  respective  labourers, 
though  in  effect  they  work  simultaneously  and  to  each  other's 
hands,  how  little  respect  or  sympathy,  or  sense  of  importance, 
they  have  for  any  department  of  the  general  field,  for  any  section 
in  the  wide  encyclopaedia  of  human  learning,  but  that  on  which 
their  own  faculties  are  concentrated  and  absorbed.  We  cannot 
imagine  aught  more  dissimilar  and  uncongenial,  than  the  intent- 


*  The  same  effect  is  still  more  likely  to  ensue  from  the  spoliation  and  secularization 
of  ecclesiastical  property. 

t  There  is  no  accounting  for  the  difference  of  minds  or  inclinations,  which  leads  one 
man  to  observe  with  interest  the  developement  of  phenomena,  another  to  speculate  on 
their  causes  5  but  were  it  not  for  this  happy  disagreement,  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
the  higher  sciences  could  ever  have  attained  even  their  present  degree  of  perfection." 
Sir  John  Herschell's  Discourses,  p.  131, 


COxXSTITUTION    OF    31AN.  243 

ness  of  a  niatheniatician  on  his  demonstrations  and  diagrams, 
and  the  equal  intentness,  nay  delight,  of  a  collector  or  antiqua- 
rian on  the  faded  manuscripts  and  uncial  characters  of  other 
days.  Yet  in  the  compound  result  of  all  these  multiform  labours, 
there  is  a  goodly  and  sustained  harmony,  between  the  practition- 
ers and  the  theorists  of  science,  between  ths  pioneers  and  the 
monarchs  of  literature — even  as  in  the  various  offices  of  a  well- 
arranged  household,  although  there  should  be  no  mutual  intelli- 
gence between  the  subordinates  who  fill  them,  there  is  a  supreme 
and  cormecting  wisdom  which  presides  over  and  animates  the 
whole.  The  goodly  system  of  philosophy,  when  viewed  as  the 
product  of  innumerable  contributions,  by  minds  of  all  possible 
variety  and  men  of  all  ages — bears  like  evidence  to  the  universe 
being  a  spacious  household,  under  the  one  and  consistent  direc- 
tion of  Him  who  is  at  once  the  Parent  and  the  Master  of  a  uni- 
versal family."^" 

IS.  And  here  it  is  not  out  of  place  to  remark,  that  it  is  the  very 
perfection  of  the  Divine  v,  orkmanship,  which  leads  every  enqui- 
rer to  imagine  a  surpassing  worth  and  grace  and  dignity  in  his 
own  special  department  of  it.  The  fact  is  altogether  notorious, 
that  in  order  to  attain  a  high  sense  of  the  importance  of  any  sci- 
ence, and  of  the  worth  and  beauty  of  the  objects  which  it  embra- 
ces— nothing  more  is  necessary  than  the  intent  and  persevering 
study  of  them.  Whatever  the  walk  of  philosophy  may  be  on 
which  man  shall  enter,  that  is  the  walk  which  of  all  others  he 
conceives  to  be  most  enriched,  by  all  that  is  fitted  to  entertain 
the  intellect,  or  arrest  the  admiration  of  the  enamoured  scholar. 
The  astronomer  who  can  unravel  the  mechanism  of  the  heavens, 
or  the  chemist  who  can  trace  the  atomic  processes  of  matter 
upon  earth,  or  the  metaphysician  who  can  assign  the  laws  of 
human  thought,  or  the  grammarian  who  can  discriminate  the 
niceties  of  language,  or  the  naturalist  who  can  classify  the  flow- 
ers and  the  birds  and  the  shells  and  the  minerals  and  the  insects 
which  so  teem  and  multiply  in  this  world  of  wonders — each  of 
these  respective  enquirers  is  apt  to  become  the  worshipper  of  his 
own  theme,  and  to  look  with  a  sort  of  indifference,  bordering  on 
contempt,  towards  what  he  imagines  the  fiir  less  interesting  track 
of  his  fellow-labourers.  Now  each  is  right  in  the  admiration  he 
renders  to  the  grace  and  grandeur  of  that  field  which  himself  has 
explored  ;  but  all  are  wrong  in  the  distaste  they  feel,  or  rather  in 
the  disregard  they  cast  on  the  other  fields  which  they  have  never 

*  The  benefit  of  subdivsion  in  science  should  lead  to  the  multiplication  of  professor- 
ships in  our  literary  institutes,  and  at  all  events  should  prevent  the  parsimonious  sup- 
pression of  them,  or  the  parsimonious  amalgamation,  of  the  duties  of  two  or  more  into 
one. 


244  THE    INTELLECTUAL 

entered.  We  should  take  the  testimony  of  each  to  the  worth  of 
that  which  he  does  know,  and  reject  the  testimony  of  each  to  the 
comparative  worthlessness  of  that  which  he  does  not  know  ;  and 
then  the  unavoidable  inference  is  that  that  must  be  indeed  a  re- 
plete and  a  gorgeous  universe  in  which  we  dwell — and  still  more 
glorious  the  Eternal  Mind,  from  whose  conception  it  arose,  and 
whose  prolific  fiat  gave  birth  to  it,  in  all  its  vastness  and  variety. 
And  instead  of  the  temple  of  science  having  been  reared,  it  were 
more  proper  to  say,  that  the  temple  of  nature  had  been  evolved. 
The  archetype  of  science  is  the  universe  ;  and  it  is  in  the  disclo- 
sure of  its  successive  parts,  that  science  advances  from  step  to 
step — not  properly  raising  any  new  architecture  of  its  own,  but 
rather  unveiling  by  degrees  an  architecture  that  is  old  as  the  crea- 
tion. The  labourers  in  philosophy  create  nothing  ;  but  only  bring 
out  into  exhibition  that  which  was  before  created.  And  there 
is  a  resulting  harmony  in  their  labours,  however  widely  apart  from 
each  other  they  may  have  been  prosecuted — not  because  they 
have  adjusted  one  part  to  another,  but  because  the  adjustment 
has  been  already  made  to  their  hands.  There  comes  forth,  it  is 
true,  of  their  labours,  a  most  m.agnificent  harmony,  yet  not  a  har- 
mony which  they  have  made,  but  a  pre-existent  harmony  which 
they  have  only  made  visible — so  that  when  tempted  to  idolize  phi- 
losophy, let  us  transfer  the  homage  to  him  who  both  formed  the 
philosopher's  mind,  and  furnished  his  philosophy  with  all  its 
materials. 

19.  (6.)  The  last  adaptation  that  we  shall  instance  is  rather 
one  of  mind  to  mind,  and  depends  on  a  previous  adaptation  in 
each  mind  of  the  mental  faculties  to  one  another.  For  the  right 
working  of  the  mind,  it  is  not  enough  that  each  of  its  separate 
powers  shall  be  provided  with  adequate  strength — they  must  be 
mixed  in  a  certain  proportion — for  the  greatest  inconvenience 
might  be  felt,  not  in  the  defect  merely,  but  in  the  excess  of  some 
of  them.  We  have  heard  of  too  great  a  sensibility  in  the  organ 
of  hearing,  giving  rise  to  an  excess  in  the  faculty,  which  amount- 
ed to  disease,  by  exposing  the  patient  to  the  pain  and  disturbance 
of  too  many  sounds,  even  of  those  so  faint  and  low,  as  to  be  in- 
audible to  the  generality  of  men.  In  like  manner  we  can  ima- 
gine the  excess  of  a  property  purely  mental,  of  memory  for  exam- 
ple, amounting  to  a  malady  of  the  intellect,  by  exposing  the  victim 
of  it  to  the  presence  and  the  perplexity  of  too  many  ideas,  even 
of  those  which  are  so  insignificant,  that  it  would  lighten  and  re- 
lieve the  mind,  if  they  had  no  place  there  at  all.*     Certain  it  is 

*  It  has  been  said  of  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  that  the  excess  of  his  memorywas  felt 
by  him  as  an  incumbrance  in  the  writing  of  history — adding  as  it  did  to  the  difficulty 


CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN.  245 

that  the  more  full  and  circumstantial  is  the  memory,  the  more  is 
given  for  the  judgment  to  do — its  proper  work  of  selecting  and 
comparing  becoming  the  more  oppressive,  with  the  number  and 
distraction  of  irrelevant  materials.  It  vvould  have  been  better 
that  these  had  found  no  original  admittance  within  the  chamber 
of  recollection  ;  or  that  only  things  of  real  and  sufficient  import- 
ance had  left  an  enduring  impression  upon  its  tablet.  In  other 
words,  it  would  have  been  better,  that  the  memory  had  been  less 
susceptible  or  less  retentive  than  it  is  ;  and  this  may  enable  us 
to  perceive  the  exquisite  balancing  that  must  have  been  requi- 
site, in  the  construction  of  the  mind — when  the  very  defect  of 
one  faculty  is  thus  made  to  aid  and  to  anticipate  the  operations 
of  another.  He  who  alone  knoweth  the  secrets  of  the  spirits, 
formed  them  with  a  wisdom  to  us  unsearchable. 

20.  Certain  it  is  however  that  variety  in  the  proportion  of  their 
faculties,  is  one  chief  cause  of  the  difference  between  the  minds 
of  men.  And  whatever  the  one  faculty  may  be,  in  any  individual, 
which  predominates  greatly  beyond  the  average  of  the  rest — that 
faculty  is  selected  as  the  characteristic  by  wliich  to  distinguish 
him  ;  and  thus  he  may  be  designed  as  a  man  of  judgment,  or  in- 
formation, or  fancy,  or  vv^it,  or  oratory.  It  is  this  variety  in  their 
respective  gifts,  which  originates  so  beautiful  a  dependence  and 
reciprocity  of  mutual  services  among  men  ;  and,  more  especially, 
when  any  united  movement  or  united  counsel  is  requisite,  that 
calls  forth  the  co-operation  of  numbers.  No  man  combines  all 
the  ingredients  of  mental  power;  and  no  man  is  wanthig  in  all  of 
them — so  that,  while  none  is  wholly  independent  of  others,  each 
possesses  some  share  of  importance  in  the  commonwealth.  The 
defects,  even  of  the  highest  minds,  may  thus  need  to  be  supple- 
mented, by  the  counterpart  excellencies  of  minds  greatly  in- 
ferior to  their  own — and,  in  this  way,  the  pride  of  exclusive  supe- 
riority is  mitigated  ;  and  the  respect  which  is  due  to  our  common 
humanity  is  more  largely  diiTused  throughout  society,  and  shared 
more  equally  among  all  the  members  of  it.  Nature  hath  so  dis- 
tributed her  gifts  among  her  children,  as  to  promote  a  mutual 
helpfulness,  and,  what  perhaps  is  still  more  precious,  a  mutual 
humility  among  men. 

21.  In  almost  all  the  instances  of  mental  superiority,  it  will  be 
found,  that  it  is  a  superiority  above  the  average  level  of  the  species, 
in  but  one  thing — or  that  arises  from  the  predominance  of  one 
faculty  above  all  the  rest.     So  much  is  this  the  case,  that  when 

of  selection.  It  is  on  ihe  same  principle  that  the  very  muldtude  of  one's  ideas  and 
vVords  may  form  an  obstacle  to  extemporaneous  speaking,  as  has  been  illustrated  by 
Dean  Swift  under  the  comparison  of  a  thin  church  emptying  faster  than  a  crowded 
one. 

21* 


246  THE    INTELLECTUAL,    &C. 

the  example  doe.^  occur,  of  an  individual,  so  richly  gifted  as  to 
excel  in  two  of  the  general  or  leading  powers  of  the  mind,  his 
reputation  for  the  one  will  impede  the  establishment  of  his  repu- 
tation for  the  other.  There  occurs  to  us  one  very  remarkable 
case  of  the  injustice,  done  by  the  men  who  have  but  one  faculty, 
to  the  men  who  are  under  the  misfortune  of  having  two.  In  the 
writings  of  Edmund  Burke,  there  has  at  length  been  discovered, 
a  rich  mine  of  profound  and  strikingly  just  reflections,  on  the 
philosophy  of  pubhc  affairs.  But  he  felt  as  well  as  thought,  and 
saw  the  greatness  and  beauty  of  things,  as  well  as  their  relations  ; 
and  so,  he  could  at  once  penetrate  the  depths,  and  irradiate  the 
surface  of  any  object  that  he  contemplated.  The  light  which  he 
flung  from  him,  entered  the  very  innermost  shrines  and  recesses 
of  his  subject ;  but  then  it  was  light  tinged  with  the  hues  of  his 
own  brilliant  imagination,  and  many  gazing  at  the  splendour,  re- 
cognized not  the  weight  and  the  wisdom  underneath.  They 
thought  him  superficial,  but  just  because  themselves  arrested  at 
the  surface  ;  and  either  because  with  the  capacity  of  emotion  but 
without  that  of  judgment,  or  because  with  the  capacity  of  judg- 
ment but  ^vithout  that  of  emotion — they,  from  the  very  meagreness 
and  mutilation  of  their  own  faculties,  were  incapable  of  that  com- 
plex homage,  due  to  a  complex  object  which  had  both  beauty  and 
truth  for  its  ingredients.  Thus  it  was  that  the  very  exuberance 
of  his  genius,  injured  the  man,  in  the  estimation  of  the  pigmies 
around  him  ;  and  the  splendour  of  his  imagination  detracted  from 
the  credit  of  his  wisdom.  Fox  had  the  sagacity  to  see  this  ;  and 
posterity  now  see  it.  Now  that,  instead  of  a  passing  meteor,  he 
is  fixed  by  authorship  in  the  literary  hemisphere,  men  can  make 
a  study  of  him  ;  and  be  at  once  regaled  by  the  poetry,  and  in- 
structed by  the  profoundness  of  his  wondrous  lucubrations. 


CHA1»TER  II. 

On  the  Connexion  helwecn  the  Intellect  and  the  Emotions, 

1.  The  intellectual  states  of  the  mind,  and  its  states  of  ennotion, 
•belong  to  distinct  provinces  of  the  mental  constitution — the  former 
to  the  percipient,  and  the  latter  to  what  Sir  James  Mackintosh 
would  term  the  emotive  or  pathematic  part  of  our  nature.     Ben- 
tham  applies  the  term  pathology  to  the  mind  in  somewhat  the 
same  sense — not  expressive,  as  in  medical  science,  of  states  of 
disease,  under  which  the  body  suifers  ;  but  expressive,  in  mental 
science,  of  states  of  susceptibility,  under  which  the  mind  is  in 
any  way  affected,  whether  painfully  or  pleasurably.     Had  it  not 
been  for  the  previous  usurpation  or  engagement  of  this  term  by 
medical  writers,  who  restrict  the  application  of  it  to  the  distempers 
of  our  corporeal  frame,  it  might  have  been  conveniently  extended 
to  all  the  susceptibilities  of  the  mental  constitution — even  when 
that  constitution  is  in  its  healthful  and  natural  state.     According 
to  the  medical  use  of  it,  the  Greek  ■naax'^   from  which  it  is  de- 
rived, is  understood  in  the  sense  of  the  Latin  translation,  patior, 
to  suffer.     According  to  the  sense  which  we  now  propose  for  it, 
in   treating  of  mental  phenomena,  the  Greek  Trao-xw    would    bo 
uiiderstood  in  the  sense  of  the  Latin  translation  afficior  to  be  af- 
fected.    When  treat  'rg  of  the  mental  pathology,  we  treat,  not  of 
mental  sufferings,  but,  more  general,  of  mental  susceptibilities. 
The  TTrtffxw    of  the  Greek,  whence  the  term  comes,  is  equivalent, 
cither  to  the  "  patior"  or  the  "afficior"  of  Latin, — the  former 
signifying  "  to  suffer,"  and  the  latter  simply  "  to  be  affected," — 
the  former  sense  being  the  one  that  is  retained  in  medical,  and 
the  latter  in  mental  pathology.     The  two  differ  as  much  the  one 
from  the  other  as  passion  does  from  affection,  or  the  violence  of 
a  distempered  does  from  the  due  and  pacific  effect  of  a  natural 
influence.     Even  the  Latin  patior  might  be  translated,  not  merely 
into  "  suffer"  but  into  "  the  being  acted  upon"  or  into  "  the  being 
passive."     Medical  pathology  is  the  study  of  those  diseases  un- 
der which  the  body  suffers.     Mental  pathology  is  the  study  of 
all  those  phenomena  that  arise  from  influences  acting  upon  the 
mind  viewed  as  passive,  or  as  not  putting  forth  any  choice  or  ac- 
tivity at  the  time.     Now,  when  thus  defined,  it  will  embrace  all 
that  we  understand  by  sensations,  and  aflections,  and  passions. 
It  is  not  of  my  will  that  certain  colours  impress  their  appropriate 
sensations  upon  my  eye,  or  that  certain  sounds  impress  their 


248  CONNEXION  BETWEEN  THE 

sensations  upon  my  ear.  It  is  not  of  my  jvill,  but  of  an  organi- 
zation which  I  often  cannot  help,  that  I  am  so  nervously  irritable, 
under  certain  disagreeable  sights  and  disagreeable  noises.  It  is 
not  of  my  will,  but  of  an  aggressive  influence  which  I  cannot 
withstand,  that,  when  placed  on  an  airy  summit,  I  forthwith  swim 
in  giddiness,  and  am  seized  with  the  imagination,  that  if  T  turn 
not  my  feet  and  my  eyes  from  the  frightful  precipice's  margin,  I 
shall  topple  to  its  base.  Neither  is  it  of  my  will  that  I  am  vi- 
sited with  such  ineffable  disgust  at  the  sight  of  some  loathsome 
animal.  But  these  are  strong  instances,  and  perhaps  evince  a 
state  bordering  upon  disease.  Yet  we  may  gather  from  them 
some  general  conception  of  what  is  meant  by  mental  pathology, 
whose  design  it  is  to  set  forth  all  those  states  of  feeling,  into 
which  the  mind  is  throwTi,  by  the  influence  of  those  various  ob- 
jects that  are  fitted  to  excite,  either  the  emotions  or  the  sensitive 
affections  of  our  nature.  And,  to  keep  the  subject  of  mental 
pathology  pure,  we  shall  suppose  these  states  of  feeling  to  be 
altogether  unmodified  by  the  will,  and  to  be  the  very  states  which 
result  from  the  law  of  the  external  senses,  or  the  laws  of  emotion, 
operating  upon  us  at  the  time,  when  the  mind  is  either  v.  holly  pow- 
erless or  wholly  inactive.  To  be  furnished  with  one  comprehen- 
sive term,  by  which  to  impress  a  mark  on  so  large  an  order  of 
phenomena,  must  be  found  very  commodious ;  and  though  we 
have  adverted  to  the  etymology  of  the  term,  yet,  in  truth,  it  is  of 
no  consequence  whether  the  process  of  derivation  be  accurate  or 
not — seeing  that  the  most  arbitrary  definition,  if  it  only  ])e  pre- 
cise in  its  objects,  and  have  a  precisely  expressed  sense  affixed 
to  it,  can  serve  all  the  purposes  for  which  a  definition  is  de- 
sirable. 

2.  The  emotions  enter  largely  into  the  pathological  depart- 
ment of  our  nature.  They  are  distinguishable  both  from  the 
appetites  and  the  external  affections,  in  that  they  are  mental  and 
not  bodily — though,  in  connnon  ^\ith  these,  they  are  character- 
ized by  a  peculiar  vividness  of  feeling,  which  distinguishes  them 
from  the  intellectual  states  of  the  mind.  It  may  not  be  easy  to 
express  the  difference  in  language ;  but  we  never  confound 
them  in  specific  instances — being  at  no  loss  to  which  of  the  two 
classes  we  should  refer  the  acts  of  memory  and  judgment ;  and 
to  which  we  should  refer  the  sentiments  of  fear,  or  gratitude,  or 
shame,  or  any  of  the  numerous  affections  and  desires  of  which 
the  mind  is  susceptible. 

3.  The  first  belonging  to  this  class  that  we  shall  notice  is  the 
desire  of  knowledge,  or  the  principle  of  curiosity — having  all 
the  appearance  and  character  of  a  distinct  and  original  tendency 
in  the  mind,  implanted  there  for  the  purpose  to  which  it  is  so 


INTELLECT    AJND    THE    EBIOTIONS.  249 

obviously  subservient.      This  principle   evinces  its  reality  and 
strength  in  very  early  childhood,  oven  anterior  to  the  faculty  of 
speech — as  might  be  observed  in  the  busy  manipulations  and 
exploring  looks  of  the  little  infant,  on  any  new  article  that  is 
placed  within  its  reach  ;  and  afterwards,  by  its  importunate  and 
never-ending  questions.     It  is  this  avidity  of  knowledge  which 
forms  the  great  impellent  to  the  acquisition  of  it — being  in  fact 
the  hunger  of  the  mmd,  and  strikingly  analogous  to  the  corres- 
ponding bodily  appetite,  in  those  respects,  by  which  each  is  ma- 
nifested, to  be  the  product  of  a  higher  wisdom  than  ours,  the 
effect  of  a  more  providential  care  than  man  would  have  taken  of 
liimself.     The  corporeal  appetency  seeks  for  food  as  its  termi- 
nating object,  without  regard  to  its  ulterior  effect  in  the  sustain- 
ing of  life.     The  mental  appetency  seeks  for  knowledge,  the 
food  of  the  mind,  as  its  terminating  object,  without  regard  to  its 
ulterior  benefits,  both  in  the  guidance  of  life,  and  the  endless 
multiplication  of  its  enjoyments.     The  prospective  wisdom  of 
man  could  be  trusted  with  neither  of  these  great  interests ;  and 
so  the  urgent  appetite  of  hunger  had  to  be  pro\dded  for  the  one, 
and  the  like  urgent  principle  of  curiosity  had  to  be  provided  for 
the  other.     Each  of  them  bears  the  same  evidence  of  a  special 
contrivance  for  a  special,  object — and  that  by  one  who   took  a 
more  comprehensive  view  of  our  welfare,  than  we  are  capable 
of  taking  for  ourselves ;  and  made  his  own  additions  to  the  me- 
chanism, for  the  express  purpose  of  supplementing  the  deficiency 
of  human  foresight.     The  resemblance  betv/een  the  two  cases 
goes  strikingly  to  demonstrate,  how  a  mental  constitution  might 
as  effectually  bespeak  the  hand  of  an  intelligent  Maker,  as  does 
a  physical  or  material  constitution.     It  is  true,  that,  with  the 
great  majority  of  men,  the  intellectual  is  not  so  urgent  or  impe- 
rious, as  is  the  animal  craving.     But  even  for  this  difference, 
we  can  perceive  a  reason,  which  would  not  have  been  found, 
under  a  random  economy  of  things.     Each  man's  hunger  would 
need  to  be  alike  strong,  or  at  least  strong  enough  to  ensure  the 
taking  of  food  for  himself — for  to  this  effect,  he  will  receive  no 
benefit  from  another  man's  hunger.     But  there  is  not  the  same 
reason  why  each  man's  curiosity  should  be  alike  strong — for  the 
curiosity  of  one  man  might  subserve  the  supply  of  information 
and  intellectual  food  to  the  rest  of  the  species.     To  enlarge  the 
knowledge  of  the  world,  it  is  not  needed,  that  all  men  should  be 
endowed  with  such  a  strength  of  desire  for  it,  as  to  bear  them 
onward  through  the  toils  of  original  investigation.     The  domi- 
nant, th^  aspiring  curiosity,  which  impels  the  adventurous  travel- 
ler to  untrodden  regions,  will  earn  discoveries,  not  for  himself 
alone,  but  for  all  men — if  their  curiosity  be  but  strong  enough 


250  CONNEXION    BETWEEN    THE 

for  the  perusal  of  his  agreeable  record,  under  the  shelter,  and 
amid  the  comforts  of  their  own  home.  And  it  is  so  in  all  the 
sciences.  The  unquenchable  thirst  of  a  few,  is  ever  drawing 
supplies  of  new  truth,  which  are  shared  in  by  thousands.  There 
is  an  obvious  meaning  in  this  variety,  between  the  stronger  cu- 
riosity of  the  few  who  discover  truth,  and  the  weaker  curiosity 
of  the  many  who  acquire  it.  The  food  which  hunger  impels 
man  to  take,  is  for  his  own  aliment  alone.  The  fruit  of  that 
study  to  which  the  strength  of  his  own  curiosity  impels  him, 
may  become  the  property  of  all  men. 

4.  But,  apart  from  this  singularity,  we  behold  in  curiosity, 
viewed  as  a  general  attribute,  a  manifest  adaptation  to  the  cir- 
cumstances in  which  m-an  is  placed.  If,  on  the  one  hand,  we 
look  to  the  rich  and  exhaustless  variety  of  truth,  in  a  universe 
fraught  with  the  materials  of  a  most  stupendous  and  ever  grow- 
ing philosophy,  and  each  department  of  which  is  fitted  to  stimu- 
late and  regale  the  curiosity  of  the  human  mind — we  should  say 
of  such  an  external  nature  as  this,  that,  presenting  a  most  appro- 
priate field  to  the  inquisitive  spirit  of  our  race,  it  was  signally 
adapted  to  the  intellectual  constitution  of  man.  Or  if,  on  the 
other  hand,  besides  looking  to  the  world  as  a  theatre  for  the  de- 
lightful entertainment  of  our  powers,  we  behold  it,  in  the  intri- 
cacy of  its  phenomena  and  laws,  in  its  recondite  mysteries,  in 
its  deep  and  difficult  recesses  yet  conquerable  to  an  indefinite 
extent  by  the  perseverance  of  man,  and  therefore  as  a  befitting 
theatre  for  the  busy  and  most  laborious  exercise  of  his  powers— 
we  should  say  of  such  an  intellectual  constitution  as  ours,  that  it 
was  signally  adapted  to  the  system  of  external  nature.  It  would 
require  a  curiosity  as  strong  and  steadfast  as  Nature  hath  given 
us,  to  urge  us  onward,  through  the  appalling  difficulties  of  a  search 
so  laborious.  Hunger  is  the  great  impellent  to  corporeal  labour, 
and  the  gratification  of  this  appetite  is  its  reward.  Curiosity  is  a 
great  impellent  to  mental  labour,  and,  whether  we  look  to  the  de- 
lights or  the  difficulties  of  knov/ledge,  we  cannot  fail  to  perceive, 
that  this  mental  appetency  in  man,  and  its  counterpart  objects  in 
Nature,  are  suited  v/ith  marvellous  exactness  to  each  other. 

5.  But  the  analogy  between  the  mental  and  the  corporeal  af- 
fections does  not  stop  here.  The  appetite  of  hunger  would,  of 
itself,  impel  to  the  use  of  food — although  no  additional  pleasure 
had  been  annexed  to  the  use  of  it,  in  the  gratifications  of  the 
palate.  The  sense  of  taste,  with  its  various  pleasurable  sensa- 
tions, has  ever  been  regarded,  as  a  distinct  proof  of  the  benevo- 
lence and  care  of  God.  And  the  same  is  true  of  the^dehghts 
which  are  felt  by  the  mind,  in  the  acquisition  of  knowledge — as 
when  truth  discloses  her  high  and  hidden  beauties  to  the  eye  of 


INTELLECT    AND    THE    EMOTIONS.  251 

'  the  enraptured  student ;  and  lie  breathes  an  ethereal  satisfac- 
tion, having  in  it  the  very  substance  of  enjoyment,  though  the 
world  at  large  cannot  sympathize  with  it.  The  pleasures  of  the 
intellect,  though  calm,  are  intense  :  insomuch,  that  a  life  of  deep 
philosophy  were  a  life  of  deep  emotion,  when  the  understanding 
receives  of  its  own  proper  aliment — having  found  its  way  to 
those  harmonies  of  principle,  those  goodly  classifications  of  phe- 
nomena, which  the  disciples  of  science  love  to  gaze  upon.  And 
the  whole  charm  does  not  lie  in  the  ultimate  discovery.  There 
is  a  felt  triumph  in  the  march,  and  along  the  footsteps  of  the  de- 
monstration which  leads  to  it ;  in  the  successive  evolutions  of 
the  reasoning,  as  well  as  its  successful  conclusion.  Like 
every  other  enterprize  of  man,  there  is  a  happiness  in  the  cur- 
rent and  continuous  pursuit,  as  well  as  in  the  final  attainment — 
as  every  student  in  geometry  can  tell,  who  will  remember,  not 
only  the  delight  he  felt  on  his  arrival  at  the  landing  place,  but  the 
delight  he  felt  when  guided  onw  ard  by  the  traces  and  concatena- 
tions of  the  pathway.  Even  in  the  remotest  abstractions  of  con- 
templative truth,  there  is  a  glory  and  a  transcendental  pleasure, 
which  the  world  knoweth  not ;  but  which  becomes  more  intelli- 
gible, because  more  embodied,  when  the  attention  of  the  en- 
quirer is  directed  to  the  realities  of  substantive  nature.  And 
though  there  be  few  who  comprehend  or  follow  Newton  in  his 
gigantic  walk,  yet  all  may  participate  in  his  triumphant  feeling, 
when  he  reached  that  lofty  summit,  where  the  whole  mystery 
and  magnificence  of  Nature  stood  submitted  to  his  gaze — an 
eminence  won  by  him  through  the  power  and  the  patience  of  in- 
tellect alone  ;  but  from  which  he  descried  a  scene  more  glorious 
far  than  imagination  could  have  formed,  or  than  ever  had  been 
pictured  and  set  forth,  in  the  sublimest  visions  of  poetry. 

6.  It  is  thus  that  while  the  love  of  beauty,  operating  upon  the 
susceptible  imagination  of  the  theorist,  is  one  of  those  seducing 
influences,  which  lead  men  astray  from  the  pursuit  of  experimen- 
tal truth — he,  in  fact,  who  at  the  outset  resists  her  fascinations, 
because  of  his  supreme  respect  for  the  lessons  of  observation, 
is  at  length  repaid  by  the  discoveries  and  sights  of  a  surpass- 
ing loveliness.  The  inductive  philosopW  began  its  career,  by  a 
renunciation,  painful  we  have  no  doul/i  at  first  to  many  of  its 
disciples,  of  all  the  systems  and  hari^ionies  of  the  schoolmen. 
But  in  the  assiduous  prosecution  of  i^  labours  it  worked  its  way 
to  a  far  nobler  and  more  magnificentiarmony  at  the  last — to  the 
real  system  of  the  universe,  more  excellent  than  all  the  schemes 
of  human  conception — not  in  the  syiidity  of  its  evidence  alone, 
but  as  an  object  of  tasteful  contemplation.  The  self-denial 
which  is  laid  upon  us  by  Bacon's  yihilosophy,  like  all  other  self- 


252  CONNEXION  BETWEEN  THE 

denial  whether  in  the  cause  of  truth  or  virtue,  hath  its  reward. 
In  giving  ourselves  up  to  its  guidance,  we  have  often  to  quit  the 
fascinations  of  beautiful  theory ;  but  in  exchange  for  these,  are 
at  length  regaled  by  the  higher  and  substantial  beauties  of  actual 
nature.  There  is  a  stubbornness  in  facts  before  which  the  specious 
ingenuity  is  compelled  to  give  way  ;  and  perhaps  the  mind  never 
suffers  more  painful  laceration,  than  when,  after  having  vainly 
attempted  to  force  nature  into  a  compliance  with  her  own  splen- 
did generalizations,  she,  on  the  appearance  of  some  rebellious 
and  impracticable  phenomenon,  has  to  practise  a  force  upon  her- 
self, when  she  thus  finds  the  goodly  speculation  superseded  by  the 
homely  and  unwelcome  experience.     It  seemed  at  the  outset  a 
cruel  sacrifice,  when  the  world  of  speculation,  with  all  its  ma- 
nageable and  engaging  simplicities  had  to  be  abandoned;  and, 
on  becoming  the  pupils  of  observation,  we,  amid  the  varieties 
of  the  actual  world  around  us,  felt  as  if  bewildered,  if  not  lost 
among  the  perplexities  of  a  chaos.     This  was  the  period  of  great- 
est sufferance,  but  it  has  had  a  glorious  termination.     In  return 
for  the  assiduity  wherewith  the  study  of  nature  hath  been  pro- 
secuted, she  hath  made  a  more  abundant  revelation  of  her  charms. 
Order  hath  arisen  out  of  confusion;  and,  in  the  ascertained  struc- 
ture of  the  universe,  there  are  now  found  to  be  a  state  and  a  sub- 
limity, beyond  all  that  ever  was  pictured  by  the  mind,  in  the  days 
of  her  adventurous   and  unfettered  imagination.     Even  viewed 
in  the  light  of  a  noble  and  engaging  spectacle  for  the  fancy  to 
dwell  upon,  who  would  ever  think  of  comparing  with  the  system 
of  Newton,  either  that  celestial  machinery  of  Dos  Cartes,  ^^hich 
was  impelled  by  whirlpools  of  ether,  or  that  still  more  cumbrous 
machinery  of  cycles  and  epicycles  which  was  the  progeny  of  a 
remoter  age  !     It  is  thus  that  at  the  commencement  of  this  ob- 
servational process,  there  is  an  abjuration  of  beauty.   But  it  soon 
reappears  in  another  form,  and  brightens  as  we   advance  ;  and 
tliere  at  length  arises,  on  sohd  foundation,  a  fairer  and  goodlier 
system,  than  ever  floated  in  airy  romance  before  the  eye  of  ge- 
nius.*    Nor  is  it  difficult  to  perceive  the  reason  of  this.     What 
we  discover  by  observa^^^ion,  is  the  product  of  the  divine  imagina- 
tion— bodied  forth  by  creative  power,  into  a  stable  and  enduring 

*  In  tlie  "  Essays  of  Joim  Sh-ppard," — a  work  very  recently  published,  and  alike 
characterised  by  the  depth  of  its  Christian  intelligence  and  feeling,  and  tJie  beauty  of 

its  thoughts there  occurs   the   foJowing  passage,  founded  on  the  Manuscript  Notes 

token  by  the  author,  of  Playfair's  Lectures.  '  It  was  impressively  stated  in  a  preli- 
minary lecture  by  a  late  eminent  S'oltish  Professor  of  Natural  Philosophy,  that  the 
actual  physical  wonders  of  creation  far  transcend  the  boldest  and  most  hyperbolical 
imaoinin^s  of  poetic  minds  ;"  "  that  the  reason  of  Newton  and  Gallileo  took  a  sub- 
lime'i-  flight  than  the  fancy  of  Milton  aid  Ariosto."  That  this  is  quite  true  I  need  only 
refer  you  to  a  few  astronomical  facts  gh.nced  at  in  subsequent  pages  of  this  volume  in 
order  to  evince.'     Sheppard's  Essays,  {.  69. 


INTELLECT    AND    THE    EMOTIONS.  253 

universe.  What  we  devise  by  our  own  ingenuity  is  l)ut  the  pro- 
duct of  human  imagination.  The  one  is  the  soHd  archetype  of 
those  conceptions  which  are  in  the  mind  of  God.  The  other 
is  the  shadowy  representation  of  those  conceptions  which  are  in 
the  mind  of  man.  It  is  even  as  with  the  labourer,  who,  by  ex- 
cavating the  rubbish  which  hides  and  besets  some  noble  archi- 
tecture, does  more  for  the  gratification  of  our  taste,  than  if,  with 
his  unpractised  hand,  he  should  attempt  to  regale  us  by  plans 
and  sketches  of  his  own.  And  so  the  drudgery  of  experimental 
science,  in  exchange  for  that  beauty,  whose  fascinations  it  resisted 
at  the  outset  of  its  career,  has  evolved  a  surpassing  beauty  from 
among  the  realities  of  truth  and  nature.  The  pain  of  the  initial 
sacriiice  is  nobly  compensated  at  the  last.  The  views  contem- 
plated through  the  medium  of  observation,  are  found,  not  only  to 
have  a  justness  in  them,  but  to  have  a  grace  and  a  grandeur  in 
them,  far  above  all  the  visions  which  are  contemplated  through  the 
medium  of  tancy,  or  which  ever  regaled  the  fondest  enthusiast  in 
the  enraptured  walks  of  speculation  and  poetry.  But  the  toils  of 
investigation  must  be  endured  first,  that  the  grace  and  the  gran- 
deur might  be  enjoyed  afterwards.  The  same  is  true  of  science 
in  all  its  departments,  not  of  simple  and  sublime  astronomy 
alone,  but  throughout  of  terrestrial  physics  ;  and  most  of  all  in 
chemistry,  where  the  internal  processes  of  actual  and  ascer- 
tained Nature  are  found  to  possess  a  beauty,  which  far  surpasses 
the  crude  though  specious  plausibilities  of  other  days.  We  per- 
ceive in  this  too,  a  fine  adaptation  of  the  external  world  to  the 
faculties  of  man  ;  a  happy  ordination  of  Nature  by  which  the  la- 
bour of  the  spirit  is  made  to  precede  the  luxury  of  the  spirit,  or 
every  disciple  of  science  must  strenuously  labour  in  the  in- 
vestigation of  its  truths,  ere  he  can  luxuriate  in  the  contemplation 
of  its  beauties.  It  is  by  the  patient  seeking  of  truth  first,  that 
the  pleasures  of  taste  and  imagination  are  superadded  to  him. 
For,  in  these  days  of  stern  and  philosophic  hardihood,  nothing 
but  evidence,  strict  and  scrutinized  and  thoroughly  sifted  evi- 
dence, will  secure  acceptance  for  any  opinion.  Whatever  its 
authority,  whatever  its  engaging  likelihood  may  be,  it  must  first 
be  made  to  undergo  the  freest  treatment  from  human  eyes  and 
human  hands.  It  is  at  one  time  stretched  on  the  rack  of  an  ex- 
periment. At  another  it  has  to  pass  through  fiery  trial  in  the 
bottom  of  a  crucible.  At  another,  it  has  to  undergo  a  long  ques- 
tionary  process  among  the  fumes,  and  the  filtrations,  and  the  in- 
tense heat  of  a  laboratory  ;  and,  not  till  it  has  been  subjected  to 
all  this  inquisitorial  torture  and  survived  it,  is  it  preferred  to  a  place 
in  the  temple  of  truth,  or  admitted  among  the  laws  and  the  les- 
sons of  a  sound  philosophy. 
22 


254  CONNEXION    BETWEEN    THE 

7.  But,  beside  those  rev/ards  and  excitements  to  science  which 
lie  in  science  itself,  as  the  curiosity  which  impels  to  the  prosecu- 
tion of  it,  and  the  delights  of  prosperous  study,  and  the  pleasures 
that  immediately  spring  from  the  contemplation  of  its  objects — 
besides  these,  there  is  a  remoter  but  not  less  powerful  influence, 
and  to  which  indeed  we  owe  greatly  more  than  half  the  philosophy 
of  our  world.  We  mean  the  respect  in  which  high  intellectual  en- 
doM-ments  are  held  by  general  society.    We  are  not  sure  but  that 
the  love  of  fame  has  been  of  more  powerful  operation,  in  speed- 
ing onward  the  march  of  discovery,  than  the  love  of  philosophy 
for  the  sake  of  its  own  inherent  charms  ;  and  there  are  thousands 
of  our  most  distinguished  intellectual  labourers,  who  but  for  an 
expected  harvest  of  renown,  would  never  have   entered  on  the 
secret  and  solitary  prosecution  of  their  arduous  walk.     We  are 
abundantly  sensible,  that  this  appetency  for  fame  may  have  helped 
to  vulgarise  both  the  literature  and  science  of  the  country  ;  that 
men,  capable   of  the  most    attic  refinement  in   the  one,   may, 
for  the  sake  of  a  wider  popularity,  have   descended  to  verbiage 
and  the  false  splendour  of  a  meretricious  eloquence  ;  and  that 
men,  capable  of  the  deepest  research  and  purest  demonstration 
in  the  other,  may,  by  the  same  unworthy  compliance  with  the  flip- 
pancy of  the  public  taste,  have  exchanged  the  profound  argument 
for  the  showy  and  superficial  illustration — preferring  to  the  ho- 
mage of  the  exalted  few,  the  attendance  and  plaudits  of  the  mul- 
titude.    It  is  thus,  that,  when  access   to  the   easier  and  lighter 
parts  of  knowledge  has  been  suddenly  enlarged,  the  heights  of 
philosophy  may  be  abandoned  for  a  season — the  men  who  wont 
to  occupy  there,  being  tempted  to  come  down  from  their  eleva- 
tion, and  hold  converse  with  that  increasing  host,  who  have  en- 
tered within  the  precincts,  and  now  throng  the  outer  courts  of  the 
temple.     It  is  thus,  that  at  certain  transition  periods,  in  the  in- 
tellectual history  of  the  species,  philosophy  may  sustain  a  tem- 
porary depression — from  which  when  she  recovers,  we  shall  com- 
bine, with  the   inestimable  benefit  of  a  more  enlightened  com- 
monality, both  the  glory  and  the  substantial  benefit  of  as  cultured 
a  literature  and    as  lofty  and  elaborate  a  philosophy  as  before. 
And  we  greatly  mistake,  if  we  think,  that  in  those  minds  of  no- 
bler and  purer  ambition,  the  love  of  fame  is  extinguished,  because 
they  are  willing  to  forego  the  bustling  attendance  and  the  clamo- 
rous applauses  of  a  crowd.   They  too  are  intensely  set  on  praise, 
but  it  must  be   such  praise   as  that  of  Atticus,  '  the  incense  of 
which,  though  not  copious,  is  exquisite — that  precious  aroma, 
which  fills  not  the  general  atmosphere,  but  by  which  the  few  and 
the  finer  spirits  of  our  race  are  satisfied.   Theirs  is  not  the  broad 
day-light  of  popularity.     It  is  a  fame  of  a  higher  order,  upheld 


INTELLECT    AND    THE    EMOTIONS.  256 

by  the  testimony  of  the  amateurs  or  the  eliie  in  science,  and 
grounded  on  those  rare  achievements  which  the  pubHc  at  large 
can  neither  comprehend  nor  sympatliize  with.  "  They  sit  on  a 
hill  apart,"  and  there  breathe  of  an  ethereal  element,  in  the  calm 
brightness  of  an  upper  region,  rather  than  in  that  glare  and  gor- 
geousness  by  which  the  eye  of  the  multitude  is  dazzled.  It  is 
not  the  eclat  of  a  bonfire  for  the  regaling  of  a  mob,  but  the  endu- 
ring though  quiet  lustre  of  a  star.  The  place  which  they  occupy 
is  aloft  in  the  galaxy  of  a  nation's  literature,  where  the  eyes  of 
the  more  finely  intellectual  gaze  upon  them  with  dehght,  and  the 
hearts  only  of  such  are  lighted  up  in  reverence  and  con  amove 
towards  them.  Theirs  is  a  high  though  hidden  praise,  flowing  in 
secret  course  through  the  savcms  of  a  community,  and  felt  by 
every  true  academic  to  be  his  most  appropriate  reward.'* 

S.   The  emotions  of  which  we  have  yet  spoken   stand  con- 
nected, either  in  the  way  of  cause  or  of  consequence,  with  the 
higher  efforts  of  the  intellect — as  the  curiosity  which  prompts  to 
these  efforts,  and  the  delights  attendant  on  the  investigation  and 
discovery  of  truths  which  reward  them ;  beside  the  grateful  in- 
cense of  those  praises,  whether  general  or  select,  that  are  awarded 
to  mental  superiority,  and  form  perhaps  the  most  powerful  incite- 
ment to  the  arduous  and  sustained  prosecution  of  mental  labour. 
But  there  is  a  connexion  of  another  sort,  between  the  emotions 
and  the  intellect,  of  still  higher  importance — because  of  the  alli- 
ance which  it  establishes  between  the  intellectual  and  the  moral 
departments  of  our  nature.     We  often  speak  of  the  pleasure  that 
we  receive  from  one  class  of  the  emotions,  as  those  of  taste — 
of  the  clanger  or  disagreeableness  of  another,  as  anger  or  fear, 
or  envy — of  the  obligation  that  lies  upon  us  to  cherish  and  retain 
certain  other  emotions,  insomuch  that  the  designation  of  virtuous 
is  generally  given  to  them,  as  gratitude,  and  compassion,  and  the 
special  love  of  relatives  or  country,  and  in  one  word,  all  the  be- 
nevolent affections  of  our  nature.     Now,  however  obvious  when 
stated,  it  is  not  sufficiently  adverted  to,  even  when  studying  the 
philosophy  of  the  subject,  and  still  less  in  the  pi-actical  govern- 
ment and  regulation  of  the  heart — that,  for  the  very  being  of  each 
of  these  specific  emotions  in  the  heart,  there  must  a  certain  ap- 
])ropriate  and  counterpart  object,  whether  through  the  channel 
of  sense  or  of  the  memory,  be  present  to  the  thoughts.     We  can 
only  feel  the  emotion  of  beauty,  in  the  act  of  beholding  or  con- 
ceiving a  beautiful  object ;  an  emotion  of  terror,  in  the  view  of 
some  danger  which  menaces  us  ;  an  emotion  oi'  gratitude,  in  the 
recollection  of  a  past  kindness,  or  of  the  benefactor  who  con- 

*  Use  and  Abuse  ot'Literary  and  Ecclesiastical  Endowments,  p.  165 — 166. 


256  CONNEXION  BETWEEN  THE 

ferred  it.  Such  then  is  the  necessary  dependence  between  per- 
ception and  feeling,  that,  without  the  one,  the  other  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  awakened.  Present  an  object  to  the  view  of  the  mind, 
and  the  emotion  suited  to  that  object,  whether  it  be  love  or  re- 
sentment, or  terror,  or  disgust,  must  consequently  arise ;  and 
with  as  great  sin-eness,  as,  on  presenting  visible  things  of  differ- 
ent colour  to  the  eye,  the  green  and  red  and  yellow  and  blue  im- 
press their  different  and  peculiar  sensations  on  the  retina.  It  is 
very  obvious,  that  the  sensations  owe  their  being  to  the  external 
objects,  without  the  presence  and  the  perception  of  which  they 
could  not  possibly  have  arisen.  And  it  should  be  alike  obvious, 
that  the  emotions  owe  their  being  to  a  mental  perception,  whe- 
ther by  sense  or  by  mem.ory,  of  the  objects  which  are  fitted  to 
awaken  them.  Let  an  object  be  introduced  to  the  notice  of  the 
mind,  and  its  correlative  emotion  instantly  arises  in  the  heart ; 
let  the  object  be  forgotten  or  disappear  from  the  mental  view, 
and  the  emotion  disappears  along  Avith  it. 

9.  We  deem  it  no  exception  to  the  invariableness  of  that  rela- 
tion, which  subsists  between  an  object  and  its  counterpart  emo- 
tion, that,  in  many  instances,  a  certain  given  object  may  be  pre- 
sent and  in  full  viev/  of  the  observer,  \\ithout  awakening  that 
sensibility  which  is  proper  to  it.  A  spectacle  of  pain  does  gene- 
rally, but  not  always,  awaken  compassion.  It  would  always,  \\ti 
think,  if  a  creature  in  agony  were  the  single  object  of  the  mind's 
contemplation.  But  the  person,  now  in  suffering,  may  be  under- 
going the  chastisement  of  some  grievous  provocation  ;  and  the 
emotion  is  different,  because  the  object  is  really  different — 
an  offender  who  has  excited  the  anger  of  our  bosom,  and, 
in  the  view  of  whose  inflicted  sufferings,  this  indignant  feel- 
ing receives  its  gratification.  Or  the  pain  may  be  inflicted 
by  our  own  hand  on  an  unoffending  animal  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  some  cruel  experiment.  If  compassion  be  wholly  un- 
felt,  it  is  not  because  in  this  instance  the  law  has  been  repealed 
which  connects  this  emotion  with  the  view  of  pain  ;  but  it  is  be- 
cause the  attention  of  the  mind  to  this  object  is  displaced  by 
another  object ;  even  the  discovery  of  truth — and  so  what  but 
for  this  might  have  been  an  intense  compassion,  is  overborne  by 
an  intenser  curiosity.  And  so  with  all  the  other  emotions. 
Were  danger  singly  the  object  of  the  mind's  contemplation,  fear, 
we  think,  would  be  the  universal  feeling ;  but  it  may  be  danger 
connected  with  the  siglit  or  the  menaces  of  an  insulting  enemy 
Avho  awakens  burning  resentment  in  the  heart,  and  when  anger 
rises  fear  is  gone  ;  or  it  may  be  danger  shared  with  fellow-com- 
batants, whose  presence  and  observation  kindle  in  the  bosom 
the  love  of  glory  and  impel  to  deeds  of  heroism — not  because 


INTELLECT    AND    THE    EMOTIONS.  257 

any  law  which  connects,  and  connects  invariably,  certain  emo- 
tions with  certain  objects,  is  in  any  instance  reversed  or  sus- 
pended ;  but  because,  in  this  conflict  and  composition  of  moral 
I'orces,  one  emotion  displaced  another  iVom  the  feelings,  only, 
however,  because  one  object  displaced  another  from  the  thoughts. 
Still,  in  every  instance,  tlie  object  is  the  stepping-stone  to  the 
emotion — insomuch,  that  if  we  want  to  recall  a  certain  emotion, 
we  must  recall  to  the  mind  that  certain  object  which  awakens  it  ; 
it'  we  want  to  cease  from  the  emotion,  we  must  cease  from  think- 
ing of  its  object,  we  must  transfer  the  mind  to  other  objects,  or 
occupy  it  with  other  thoughts. 

10.  This  connexion  between  the  percipient  faculties  of  the 
mind  and  its  feelings,  reveals  to  us  a  connexion  between  the  intel- 
lectual and  the  moral  departments  of  our  nature.  How  the  one 
is  brought  instrumentally  to  bear  upon  the  other,  will  be  after- 
wards explained.  But  meanwhile  it  is  abundantly  obvious,  that 
the  presence  or  the  absence  of  certain  feelings  stands  connected 
with  the  presence  or  the  absence  of  certain  thoughts.  We  can 
MO  more  break  up  the  connexion  between  the  thought  of  any 
object  that  is  viewed  mentally,  and  the  feeling  which  it  impresses 
on  the  heart,  than  we  can  break  up  the  connexion  between  the 
sight  of  any  object  that  is  viewed  materially,  and  the  sensatioii 
which  it  impresses  upon  the  retina.  If  we  look  singly  and  stead- 
fastly to  an  object  of  a  particular  colour,  as  red,  there  is  an  or- 
ganic necessity  for  the  peculiar  sensation  of  redness,  from  which 
we  cannot  escape,  but  by  shutting  our  eyes,  or  turning  them 
away  to  objects  that  are  differently  coloured.  If  we  think  singly 
and  steadfastly  on  an  object  of  a  particular  character,  as  an  in- 
jvuy,  there  seems  an  organic  necessity  also  for  the  peculiar  emo- 
tion of  resentment,  from  which  there  appears  to  be  no  other  way 
of  escaping,  than  by  stifling  the  thought,  or  turning  the  mind 
away  to  other  objects  of  contemplation.  Now  we  hear  both  of 
virtuous  emotions  and  of  vicious  emotions  ;  and  it  is  of  capital 
importance  to  know  how  to  retain  the  one  and  to  exclude  the 
other — which  is  by  dwelling  in  thought  on  the  objects  that  awaken 
the  former,  and  discharging  from  thought  the  objects  that  awaken 
the  latter.  And  so  it  is  by  thinking  in  a  certain  way  that  wrong 
sensibilities  are  avoided,  and  right  sensibilities  are  upholden.  It 
is  by  keeping  up  a  remembrance  of  the  kindness,  that  we  keep 
up  the  emotion  of  gratitude.  It  is  by  forgetting  the  provocation, 
that  we  cease  from  the  emotion  of  anger.  It  is  by  reflecting  on 
the  misery  of  a  fellow  creature  in  its  vivid  and  affecting  details, 
that  pity  is  called  forth.  It  is  by  meditating  on  the  perfections 
of  the  Godhead,  that  we  cherish  and  keep  ahve  our  reverence  for 
the  highest  virtue  and  our  loTe  for  the  highest  goodness.  In  one 
22* 


258  CONNEXION  BETWEEN  THE 

word,  thought  is  at  once  the  harbinger  and  the  sustainer  of  feehng  : 
and  this,  of  itself,  forms  an  important  hnk  of  communication  be- 
tween the  intellectual  and  the  moral  departments   of  our  nature. 

11.  We  shall  not  be  able  to  complete  our  viev.s,  either  on  the 
moral  character  of  the  emotions,  or  their  dependence  on  the  per- 
cipient faculties  of  the  mind,  until  we  have  established  a  certain 
ulterior  principle  which  comes  afterwards  into  notice.     Neither 
do   we  now  expatiate  on  their  uses,  of  v,  hich  we  have  already 
given  sufficient  specimens,  in  our  treatm.ent  of  the  special  affec- 
tions.    We  would  only  remark  at  present,  on  their  vast  impor- 
tance to  human  happiness — seeing  that  a  state  of  mental  happi- 
ness cannot  even  be   so  much  as  im.agined  without  a  state  of 
emotion.     They  are  (he  emotions,  in  fact,  and  the  external  affec- 
tions together,  which  share  between  them  the  whole  interest, 
whether  pleasurable  or  painful,  of  human  existence.     And  what 
a  vivid  and  varied  interest  that  is,  may  be  rendered  evident,  by  a 
mere  repetition  of  those  words  which  compose  the  nomenclature 
of  our  feelings — as  hope,  and  fear,  and  grief,   and  joy,  and  love 
diversified  into  so  many  separate  affections  tov»'ards  wealth,  fame, 
power,  knowledge,  and  all  the  other  objects  of  human  desire,  L^e- 
sides   the  tasteful  and  benevolent  emotions — which  altogether 
keep  their  unremitting  play  in  the  heart,  and  sustain  or  fill  up  the 
continuity  of  our  sensible  being.     It  says  enough  for  the  adap- 
tation of  external  nature  to  a  mental  constitution  so  complexly 
and  variously  endowed,   that  numerous  as  these  susceptibilities 
are,  the  world  is  crowded  with  objects,  that  keep  them  in  full  and 
busy  occupation.     The  details  of  this  contemplation   are  inex- 
haustible ;  and  we  are  not  sure  but  that  the  general  lesson  of  the 
Divine  care  or  Divine  benevolence,  which  may  be  founded  u[)on 
these,  could  be  more  effectually  learned  by  a  close   attention  of 
the  mind  upon  one  specific  instance,  than  by  a  complete  enume- 
ration of  all  the  instances,  with  at  the  same  time  only  a  briefer 
and  slighter  notice  of  each  of  them. 

12.  And  it  would  make  the  lesson  all  the  more  impressive,  if, 
instead  of  selecting  as  our  example,  an  emotion  of  very  exalted 
character,  and  of  which  the  influence  on  human  enjoyment  stood 
forth  in  bright  daylight  to  the  observation  of  all,  such  as  the  sen- 
sibility of  a  heart  that  was  feelingly  alive  to  the  calls  of  benevo- 
lence, or  feehngly  alive  to  the  beauties  of  nature — v»e  should  take 
for  our  case  some  other  kind  of  emotion,  so  common  perhaps  as 
to  be  ignobly  familiar,  and  on  which  one  would  scarcely  think  of 
constructing  aught  so  dignified  or  so  serious  as  a  theological  ar- 
gument. Yet  we  cannot  help  thinking,  that  it  most  emphatically 
tells  us  of  the  teeming,  the  profuse  benevolence  of  the  Deity — 
when  we  reflect  on  those  homelier  and  those  every-day  so^irces, 


INTELLECT    AND    THE    EMOTIONS.  259 

out  of  which,  the  whole  of  human  hie,  through  the  successive 
hours  of  it,  is  seasoned  witli  enjoyment ;  and  a  most  agreeable 
zest  is  imparted  from  tliem,  to  the  ordinary  occasions  of  converse 
and  companionship  amont;  men.   When  the  love  of  novelty  finds        I 
in  the  walks  of  science  the  gratification  that  is  suited  to  it,  we        ( 
can  reason  gravely  on  the  final  cause  of  the  emotion,  and  speak 
of  the  purpose  of  Nature,  or  rather  of  the  Author  of  Nature,  in 
having  iuslitutcd  such  a  reward  for  intellectual  labour.     But  we 
lose  sight  of  all  the  wisdom  and  all   the  goodness  that  are  con- 
nected with  this  mental  ordination — when  the  very  same  prin- 
ciple, which,  in  the  lofty  and  liberal  savant,  we  call  the  love  of 
novelty,  becomes,  in  the  plain  and  ordinary  citizen,  the   love  of 
news.     Yet  in  this  humbler  and  commonplace  form,  it  is  need- 
less to  say,  how  prolific  it  is  of  enjoyment — giving  an  edge  as  it 
were  to  the  whole  of  one's  conscious  existence,  and  its  principal 
charm  to  the  innocent  and  enlivening  gossip  of  every  social 
party.     Perhaps  a  still  more  effective  exemj)lification  may  be 
had  in  another  emotion  of  this  class,  that  which  arises  from  our 
sense  of  the  ludicrous — which  so  often  ministers  to  the  gaiety  of 
man's  heart,  even  when  alone  ;  and  which,  when  he  congregates 
uith  his  fellows,  is  ever  and  anon  breaking  forth  into  some  humo- 
rous conception,  that  infects   alike  the  fancies  of  all,  and   finds 
vent  in  one  common  shout  of  ccstacy.   Like  every  other  emotion, 
it  stands  allied  with  a  perception  as  its  antecedent,  the  object  of 
the  perception  in  this  instance  being  the  conjunction   of  things 
I  hat  are  incongruous  with  each  other — on  the  first  discovery  or 
conception  of  which,  the  mirth  begins  to  tumultuate  in  the  heart 
of  some  one  ;   and  on  the  first  utterance  of  which,  it  passes  with 
irrepressible  sympathy  into  the  hearts  of  all  who  are  around  him 
— whence  it  obtains  the  same  ready  discharge  as  before,  in  a  loud 
and  general  efTervcscencc.     To  perceive  how  inexhaustible  the 
source  of  this  enjoyment  is,  we  have  only  to  think  of  it  in  con- 
nexion  with  its  cause  ;   and  then  try  to  compute,  if  we  can,  all 
the  possibilities  of  wayward  deviation,  from  the  sober  literalities 
of  truth  and  nature,  whether  in  the  shape  of  new  imaginations  by 
the  mind  of  man,  or  of  new  combinations  and  events  in  actual 
history.      It  is   thus  that  the   pleasure  connected  with  our  sense 
of  the  ludicrous,  forms  one  of  the  most  current  gratifications  of 
human  life;   nor  is  it  essential  that  there  should  be  any  rare  pe- 
culiarity of  mental  conformation,  in  order  to  realize  it.     We  find 
it  the  perennial  source  of  a  sort  of  gentle  and  quiet  delectation, 
even  to  men  of  the  most  sober  temperament,  and  whose  habit  is 
as  remote  as  possible  from  that  of  fantastic  levity,  or  wild  and 
airy  extravagance.     When  acquaintances  meet  together  in   the 
street,  and  hold  colloquy  for  a  few  minutes,  they  may  look  grave 


260  CONNEXION    BETWEEN    THE 

enough,  if  business  or  politics  or  some  matter  of  serious  in- 
telligence be  the  theme — yet  how  seldom  do  they  part  before 
some  coruscation  of  playfulness  has  been  struck  out  between 
them  ;  and  the  interview,  though  begun  perhaps  in  sober  earnest, 
but  seldom  passes  off,  without  some  pleasantry  or  other  to  en- 
liven it.  We  should  not  dwell  so  long  on  this  part  of  the  hu- 
man constitution,  were  there  not  so  much  of  happiness  and  so 
aiuch  of  benevolence  allied  with  it — as  is  obvious  indeed  from 
{he  very  synonymes,  to  which  the  language  employed  for  the  ex- 
()ression  of  its  various  phenomena  and  feeling  has  given  rise. 
To  what  else  but  to  the  pleasure  we  have  in  the  ludicrous  is  it 
owing,  that  a  ludicrous  observation  has  been  termed  a  pleasan- 
try ;  or  how  but  to  the  affinity  between  ha{>piness  and  mirth  can 
ive  ascribe  it,  that  the  two  terms  are  often  employed  as  equivalent 
to  each  other  ;  and  whence  but  from  the  strong  connexion  which 
subsists  between  benevolence  and  humour  can  it  be  explained, 
fhat  a  man  is  said  to  be  in  good  humour,  when  in  a  state  of  placid- 
ness  and  cordiality  with  all  who  are  around  him  ?  We  are  aware 
<hat  ihere  is  not  a  single  disposition  wherewith  Nature  hath  en- 
dowed us  which  may  not  be  perverted  to  evil ;  but  when  we  see 
so  much  both  of  human  kindness  and  of  human  enjoyment  asso- 
ciated with  that  exhilaration  of  heart  to  which  this  emotion  is  so 
constandy  giving  rise — ministering  with  such  copiousness,  both 
to  the  smiles  of  the  domestic  hearth,  and  the  gaieties  of  festive 
companionship — we  cannot  but  regard  it  as  the  provision  of  an 
indulgent  Father,  who  hath  ordained  it  as  a  sweetener  or  an  emol- 
lient amid  the  annoyances  and  the  ills  which  flesh  is  heir  to. 

13.  It  were  difficult  to  compute  the  whole  effect  of  this  ingre- 
dient, in  alleviating  the  vexations  of  life  ;  but  certain  it  is  that 
the  ludicrous  is  often  blended  with  the  annoyances  which  befal 
us  ;  and  that  its  operation,  in  lightening  the  pressure  of  what 
might  have  otherwise  been  viewed  as  somewhat  in  the  light  of  a 
calamity,  is  far  from  inconsiderable.  This  balancing  of  oppo- 
aiie  emotions,  suggested  by  difierent  parts  of  the  same  complex 
ffvent  or  object,  and  the  effect  of  the  one  if  a  pleasant  emotion, 
1/1  assuaging  the  painfulness  of  the  other,  is  not  an  uncommon 
jtaenomenon  in  the  exhibitions  of  human  feeling.  A  very  obvi- 
ous specimen  of  this  is  afforded  by  an  acquaintance  in  the  act  of 
fauing.  There  is  no  doubt  an  incongruity  betw  een  the  moment 
oi  his  walking  uprightly,  and  with  the  full  anticipation  of  getting 
forward  in  that  attitude  to  the  object  whither  he  is  bending — and 
the  next  moment  of  his  floundering  in  the  mud,  and  hastening 
with  all  his  might  to  gather  himself  up  again.  They  who  philo- 
sophize upon  the  laws  of  succession  in  the  events  of  Nature, 
have  a  great  demand  for  such  successions  as  are  immediate. 


INTELLECT    AND    THE    EMOTIONS.  261 

They  go  busily  in  quest  of  the  contiguous  links,  £Uid  properly 
conceive  that  if  any  one  hidden  step  be  yet  interposed,  between 
the  two  which  they  regularly  observe  to  follow  each  other,  they 
have  not  completed  the  investigation,  till  that  step  also  have 
been  ascertained.  It  is  therefore  so  far  an  advantage  in  regard 
to  the  above  phenomenon,  that  there  does  not  appear  to  be  time 
even  for  the  most  rapid  and  fugitive  intervention — for  only  let  it 
occur  in  the  presence  of  lookers  on,  and,  with  the  speed  of 
lightning,  will  it  be  followed  up  by  the  instant  and  obstreperous 
glee  of  a  whole  host  of  spectatorship. 

14.  But  this  very  exhibition  may  give  rise  to  a  wholly  differ- 
ent emotion.  The  provocative  to  laughter  lies  in  the  awkward- 
ness of  the  fall.  Let  the  awkwardness  be  conceived  to  abide 
as  it  was,  and  this  other  ingredient  to  be  added,  the  severity  of 
the  fall — that  a  limb  is  fractured,  or  that  a  swoon,  a  convulsion, 
or  a  stream  of  blood  is  the  immediate  consequence.  In  propor- 
tion to  the  hurt  that  was  sustained,  would  be  the  sympathy  of 
far  the  greater  number  of  the  by-standers  ;  and  this  might  be  so 
heightened  by  the  palpable  sufferings  of  him  to  whom  the  acci- 
dent has  befallen,  that  the  sense  of  the  ludicrous  might  be  en- 
tirely overborne. 

15.  The  tv  o  provocatives  are  the  awkwardness  of  the  fall 
and  its  severity.  The  two  emotions  are  the  mirth  and  the  com- 
passion. The  one  of  these  may  so  predominate  over  the  other 
as  to  leave  the  mind  under  its  entire  and  single  ascendency.  A 
mathematician  would  require  the  point,  at  which,  by  a  gradual 
increase  or  diminution  upon  either  of  the  two  elements,  they 
were  mutually  neutralized — or  the  transition  was  made  from  the 
one  to  the  other  of  them.  In  this  we  may  not  be  able  to  satisfy 
him.  But  all  may  have  been  sensible  of  an  occasion,  Avhen  the 
two  were  so  delicately  poised,  that  the  mind  positively  vibrated 
— so  as  to  make  a  sort  of  tremulous  and  intermediate  play,  be- 
tween these  distinct  and  nearly  o})posite  emotions.-  This  is  one 
of  those  nicer  exhibitions  of  our  nature  that  one  feels  an  inter- 
est in  remarking  ;  and  many  perhaps  may  recollect  the  instances, 
when  even  some  valued  friend  hath  smarted  pretty  seriously, 
under  some  odd  or  ludicrous  mishap  in  which  he  hath  been  in- 
volved, and  when  they  have  felt  themselves  in  a  state  of  most 
curious  ambiguity,  between  the  pity  wliich  they  ought  to  feel, 
and  the  levity  which  they  were  not  able  to  repress.  The  pecu- 
liarities of  this  midway  condition  are  greatly  aggravated,  if  there 
be  so  many  acquaintances  who  share  it  among  them,  and  more 
especially,  if  they  meet  together  and  talk  over  the  subject  of  it — 
in  which  case,  it  will  be  no  singular  display  of  our  mysterious 
nature,  although  the  visitations  of  a  common  sympathy  should  bo 


262  CONNEXION  BETWEEN  THE 

found  to  alternate  with  the  high-sounding  peals  of  a  most  raptur- 
ous and  uncontrollable  merriment. 

16.  We  cannot  fail  to  perceive,  in  this  instance  too,  how  in- 
separable the  alliance  is  between  perception  and  feeling.  Ac- 
cording as  the  mind  looks,  so  is  the  heart  affected.  When  we 
look  to  the  awkwardness  of  the  mischance,  whatever  it  may  be, 
we  become  gay.  When  we  look  to  its  severity,  we  become  sad. 
It  is  instructive  to  observe,  with  what  fidelity  the  heart  follows 
the  mind  in  this  process,  and  how  whichever  the  object  is  that 
for  the  time  is  regarded  by  the  one,  it  is  sure  to  be  responded  to 
by  an  appropriate  emotion  from  the  other. 

17.  We  should  not  have  ventured  on  these  illustrations,  but 
for  the  lesson  which  they  serve  to  estabhsh.  They  prove  the 
extent  to  which  a  sense  of  the  ludicrous  might  lighten  and  divert 
the  painfulness  of  those  serious  feelings  to  which  humanity  is 
exposed.  It  is  true  that  much  evil  may  be  done,  when  it  puts  to 
flight,  as  it  often  does,  seriousness  of  principle  ;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  is  unquestionable  good  done  by  it,  when  it  puts  to 
flight,  either  the  seriousness  of  resentment — or  the  seriousness 
of  suffering.  And  when  we  think  of  its  frequent  and  powerful 
effect,  both  in  softening  the  malignant  asperities  of  debate,  and 
in  reconciling  us  to  those  misadventures  and  pettier  miseries  of 
life,  which,  if  not  so  alleviated,  would  keep  us  in  a  state  of  con- 
tinual festerment — we  cannot  but  regard  even  this  humbler  part 
of  the  constitution  of  man,  as  a  palpable  testimony  both  to  the 
wisdom  and  goodness  of  Him  who  framed  us.* 

*."  The  advantages  which  we  derive  from  our  susceptibility  of  this  species  of  emo- 
tion, are,  in  their  immediate  influence  on  the  cheerfulness,  and  therefore  on  the  gene- 
ral happiness  of  society,  sufficiently  obvious.  How  many  hours  would  pass  wearily 
along,  but  for  those  pleasantries  of  wit,  or  of  easier  and  less  pretending  gaiety  which 
enliven  what  would  have  been  dull,  and  throw  many  bright  colours  on  what  would  have 
been  gloomy.  We  are  not  to  estimate  these  accessions  of  pleasure  lightlv,  because  they 
relate  to  objects  that  may  seem  trifling,  v/hen  considered  together  with  those  more  se- 
rious concerns,  by  which  our  ambition  is  occupied,  and  in  relation  to  which,  in  the  suc- 
cess or  failure  of  our  various  projects,  we  look  back  on  the  past  months  or  years  of  our 
life  as  fortunate  or  unfortunate.  If  these  serious  concerns  alone  were  to  be  regarded, 
we  might  often  have  been  very  fortunate  and  very  unhappy,  as  in  other  circumstances  we 
might  often  have  had  much  happiness  in  the  hours  and  days  of  years,  which  terminated 
at  last  in  the  disappointment  of  some  favourite  scheme.  It  is  good  to  travel  with  pure 
and  balmy  airs,  and  cheerful  sunshine,  though  we  should  not  find,  at  the  end  of  our 
joiu-ney,  the  friend  whom  we  wished  to  see  ;  and  the  gaieties  of  social  converse,  though 
they  are  not,  in  our  journey  of  life,  what  we  travel  to  obtain,  are  during  the  continuance 
of  our  journey  at  once  a  freshness  which  we  breathe,  and  a  light  that  gives  every  object 
to  sparkle  to  our  eye  with  a  radiance  that  is  not  its  own."  Brown's  Lectures — Lec- 
ture 59.  But  this  emotion  is  allied  with  benevolence  as  well  as  with  enjoyment.  There 
is  perhaps  not  a  more  welcome  topic  at  the  tables  of  the  great,  than  the  characteristic 
peculiarities  or  oddities  of  humble  life — and  we  have  no  doubt  that  along  with  the 
amusement  which  is  felt  in  the  cottage  anecdotes  of  a  domain,  there  is  often  awakened 
by  them,  a  benevolent  interest  in  the  well-being  of  the  occupiers. 


INTELLECT    AND    THE    EMOTIONS.  263 

18.  Before  quitting  this  departmeirt  of  the  subject,  we  may 
advert,  not  to  an  individual  pecuharity,  but  to  the  respective  cha- 
racters by  which  two  classes  of  intellect  are  distinguished,  and 
to  the  effect  of  their  mutual  action  and  reaction  on  the  progress 
of  opinion  in  the  world. 

19.  The  first  of  these  intellectual  tendencies  may  be  seen  in 
those  who  are  distinguished  by  their  fond  and  tenacious  adhe- 
rence to  the  existing  philosophy,  and  by  their  indisposition  to 
any  changes  of  it.  They  feel  it  painful  to  relinquish  their  wonted 
and  established  habits  of  thought — as  if  the  mind  were  to  suffer 
violence,  by  having  to  quit  its  ancient  courses,  and  to  unlearn  the 
opinions  of  other  days.  We  have  no  doubt  that  the  love  of  re- 
pose, the  aversion  to  that  mental  labour  which  is  requisite  even 
for  the  understanding  of  a  new  system,  or  at  least  for  the  full 
comprehension  and  estimate  of  its  proofs — enters  largely  into  this 
dislike  for  all  novelties  of  speculation,  into  this  determined  pre- 
ference for  the  doctrines  in  which  they  have  been  educated — al- 
though the  associations  too  of  taste  and  reverence  share  largely 
in  the  result.  It  is  thus  that  the  old  are  more  disinclined  to 
changes  ;  and  there  is  a  peculiar  reason  why  schools  and  cor- 
porations of  learning  should  make  the  sturdiest  resistance  to 
them.  It  is  a  formidable  thing  to  make  head  against  that  majo- 
rity within  the  walls  of  every  venerable  institute,  which  each  new 
opinion  has  to  encounter  at  the  outset ;  and  more  especially,  if 
it  tend  to  derange  the  methods  of  a  university,  or  unsettle  the  long 
established  practice  of  its  masters.  This  will  explain  that  inve- 
teracy of  long  possession,  which,  operating  both  in  many  indivi- 
dual minds  and  in  the  bosom  of  colleges,  gives  formation  and 
strength  to  what  may  be  termed  the  conservative  party  in  science 
or  in  the  literary  commonwealth — that  party  which  maintains  the 
largest  and  most  resolute  contest  with  all  new  opinions,  and  will 
not  give  way,  till  overpowered  by  the  weight  of  demonstration, 
and  energy  of  the  public  voice  in  their  favour. 

20.  Opposed  to  this  array  of  strength  on  the  side  of  existing 
principles,  we  have  the  incessant  operations  of  what  may  be 
termed  the  movement  party  in  science  or  in  the  literary  com- 
monwealth— some  of  whom  are  urged  onward  by  the  mere  love 
of  novelty  and  change  ;  others  by  the  love  of  truth  ;  and  very 
many  by  a  sort  of  ardent  and  indefinite  imagination  of  yet  un- 
reached heights  in  philosophy,  and  of  the  new  triumphs  which 
await  the  human  mind  in  its  interminable  progress  from  one  bril- 
liant or  commanding  discovery  to  another.  We  have  often 
thought  that  a  resulting  optimism  is  the  actual  effect  of  the  play 
or  collision  that  is  constantly  kept  up  between  these  two  rival 
parties  in  the  world  of  letters.      On  the  one  hand  it  is  well,  that 


264  CONNEXION  BETWEEN  THE 

philosophy  should  not  be  a  fixture,  but  should  at  length  give  way 
to  the  accumulating  force  of  evidence.  But  on  the  other  hand 
it  is  well,  that  it  should  require  a  certain,  and  that  a  very  consi- 
derable force  of  e\adence,  ere  it  shall  quit  its  present  holds,  or 
resign  the  position  which  it  now  occupies.  We  had  rather  that 
it  looked  with  an  air  of  forbidding  authority  on  the  mere  likeli- 
hoods of  speculation  than  that,  lightly  set  agog  by  every  spe- 
cious plausibility,  it  should  open  its  schools  to  a  restless  and  ra- 
pid succession  of  yet  undigested  theories.  It  is  possible  to  hold 
out  too  obstinately  and  too  long  ;  but  yet  it  is  well,  that  a  certain 
balance  should  obtain  between  the  adhesive  and  the  aggressive 
forces  in  the  world  of  speculation ;  and  that  the  general  mind  of 
society  should  have  at  least  enough  of  the  sedative  in  its  com- 
position, to  protect  it  from  aught  like  violent  disturbance,  or  the 
incursion  of  any  rash  adventurer  in  the  field  of  originahty.  And 
for  this  purpose  it  is  well,  that  each  novelty,  kept  at  bay  for  a 
time,  and  made  to  undergo  a  sufficient  probation,  should  be  com- 
pelled, thoroughly  to  substantiate  its  claims—ere  it  be  permitted 
to  take  a  place  beside  the  philosophy,  which  is  recognized  by  all 
the  authorities,  and  received  into  all  the  institutes  of  the  land. 

21.  And  they  are  the  very  same  principles,  which,  when  rightly 
blended,  operate  so  beneficially,  not  in  philosophy  alone,  but  in 
politics.  There  is  no  spirit  which  requires  more  to  be  kept  in 
check,  than  that  of  the  mere  wantonness  of  legislation  ;  and  so 
far  from  being  annoyed  by  that  indisposition  to  change,  which  is 
rather  the  characteristic  of  all  estabhshed  authorities,  we  should 
regard  it  in  the  light  of  a  wholesome  counteractive,  by  which  to 
stay  the  excesses  of  wild  and  wayward  innovators.  There  is  a 
great  purpose  served  in  society  by  that  law  of  nature,  in  virtue 
of  which  it  is  that  great  bodies  move  slowly.  It  would  not  an- 
swer, if  a  government  were  to  veer  and  to  vacillate  ^vith  every 
breath  of  speculation — if  easily  liable  to  be  diverted  from  the 
steadfastness  of  their  course,  by  every  lure  or  by  every  likehhood 
which  sanguine  adventurers  held  out  to  them.  It  is  well,  that 
in  the  ruling  corporation,  there  should  be  a  certain  strength  of 
resistance,  against  which  all  splendid  imaginations  and  all  un- 
sound and  hollow  plausibilities,  might  spend  their  force  and  be 
dissipated  ;  and,  so  far  from  complaining  of  it  as  an  impractica- 
ble engine  which  is  so  hard  and  diflicult  of  impulse,  we  should 
look  upon  its  very  unwieldiness  in  the  light  of  a  safeguard,  with- 
out which  we  should  be  driven  to  and  fro  by  every  wind  of  doc- 
trine on  a  troubled  sea  that  never  rests.  On  these  accounts  we 
feel  inclined,  that,  in  the  vessel  of  the  body  politic,  there  should 
be  a  preponderance  of  ballast  over  sail ;  and  that  it  really  is  so, 
we  might  put  to  the  account  of  that  optimism,  which,  with  cer- 


INTELLECT    AND    THE    EMOTIONS.  265 

tain  reservations,  obtains  to  a  very  great  degree,  in  the  frame- 
work, and  throughout  the  whole  mechanism  of  human  society. 

22.   But  this  property  in  the  machine  of  a  government  to  which 
we  now  advert,  does  not  preclude  that  steady  and  sober-minded 
improvement  which  is  all  that  is  desirable.     It  only  restrains  the 
advocates  of  improvement  from  driving  too  rapidly.     It  does  not 
stop,  it  only  retards  their  course,  by  a  certain  number  of  defeats 
and  disappointments,  which,  if  their  course  be  indeed  a  good  one, 
are  but  the  stepping  stones  to  their  ultimate  triumph.      Ere  that 
the  victory  is  gotten,  they  must  run  the  gauntlet  of  many  re- 
verses and  many  mortifications  ;  and  they  are  not  to  expect  by 
one,  but  by  several  and  successive  blows  of  the  catapulta,  that 
inveterate  abuses  and  long  established  practices  can  possibly  be 
overthrown.     It  is  thus,  in  fact,  that  every  weak  cause  is  thrown 
back  into  the  nonentity  whence  it  sprung,  and  that  every  cause 
of  inherent  goodness  or  worth  is  ultimately  carried — rejected, 
like  the  former,  at  its  first  and  earliest  overtures  ;  but,  unlike  the 
former,  coming  back  every  time  v.ith  a  fresh  weight  of  public 
feeling  and  public  demonstration  in  its  favour,  till,  like  the  abo- 
lition of  the  slave  trade  or  that  of  commercial  restrictions,  causes 
which  had  the  arduous  struggle  of  many  long  years  to  undergo, 
it  at  length  obtains  the  conclusive  seal  upon  it  of  the  highest 
authority  in  the  land,  and  a  seal  by  which  the  merits  of  the  cause 
are  far  better  authenticated,  than  if  the  legislature  were  apt  to 
fluctuate  at  the  sound  of  every  new  and  seemly  proposal.     We 
have  therefore  no  quarrel  with  a  certain  vis  incrtm  in  a  legisla- 
ture.    Only  let  it  not  be  an  absolute  fixture  ;  and  there  is  the 
hope,  with  perseverance,  of  all  that  is  really  important  or  desir- 
able in  reformation.     The  sluggishness  that  has  been  ascribed 
to  great  corporations  is,  in  the  present  instance,  a  good  and  de- 
sirable property — as  being  the  means  of  separating  the  chaff  from 
the  wheat  of  all  those  overtures,  that  pour  in  upon  representa- 
tives from  every  quarter  of  the  land  ;  and,  so  far  from  any  feel- 
ing of  annoyance  at  the  retardation  to  which  the  best  of  them 
is  subjected,  it  should  be  most  patiently  and  cheerfully  acquiesced 
in,  as  being  in  fact  the  process,  by  which  it  brightens  into  pros- 
perity, and  at  length  its  worth  and  its  excellence  are  fully  mani- 
fested. 

23.  It  is  not  the  necessary  effect  of  this  peculiar  mechanism, 
it  is  but  the  grievous  perversion  of  it,  when  the  corrupt  inveteracy 
has  withstood  improvement  so  long,  that  ere  it  could  be  carried, 
the  assailing  force  had  to  gather  into  the  momentum  of  an  energy 
that  might  afterwards  prove  mischievous,  when  the  obstacle 
which  provoked  it  into  action  had  at  length  been  cleared  away. 
It  is  then  that  the  vessel  of  the  state  which  might  have  been 
23 


266  CONNEXION  BETWEEN  THE 

borne  safely  and  prosperously  onward  in  the  course  ofages,  bya 
steady  breeze  and  with  a  sufficiency  of  ballast,  as  if  slipped  from 
her  moorings  is  drifted  uncontrollably  along,  and  precipitated 
from  change  to  change  with  the  violence  of  a  hurricane. 


CHAPTER  III. 

On  the  Connexion  beiiveen  the  Intellect  and  the  Will, 

1.  There  is  distinction  made  between  a  mental  susceptibility 
and  a  mental  power.  Should  we  attempt  to  define  it,  we  might 
say  of  the  power,  that  it  implies  a  reference  to  something  conse- 
quent and  of  the  susceptibility  that  it  implies  a  reference  to  some- 
thing antecedent.  It  is  thus  that  a  volition  is  conceived  to  indi- 
cate the  former,  and  an  emotion  to  indicate  the  latter.  Anger 
would  be  spoken  of  rather  as  a  susceptibility  of  the  mind  than  as 
a  power ;  and  will  rather  as  a  power  than  as  a  susceptibihty. 
We  view  anger  in  connexion  with  the  provocatives  which  went 
before  it ;  and  so  regarding  it  as  an  effect,  we  conceive  of  the 
mind  in  which  this  effect  has  been  wrought,  as  being  at  the  time 
in  a  state  of  subject  passiveness.  We  view  the  will  in  connex- 
ion with  the  deeds  which  follow  on  its  determinations  ;  and  so 
regarding  it  as  a  cause,  we  conceive  of  the  mind  when  it  wills 
as  being  in  a  state  of  active  efficiency.  And  yet  a  determination 
of  the  will  may  be  viewed  not  merely  as  the  prior  term  to  the  act 
which  flows  from  it,  but  also  as  the  posterior  term  to  the  influence 
which  gave  it  birth — or  in  other  words,  either  as  the  forthgoing 
of  a  power  or  as  the  result  of  a  susceptibility.  It  is  thus  that  de- 
sire, which  on  looking  backward  to  the  cause  from  whence  it 
sprung,  we  should  call  a  susceptibihty — on  looking  forward  to  the 
effect  which  it  prompts  for  the  attainment  of  its  object,  we  should 
call  an  impellent ;  and  thus  depth  of  feeling  is  identical,  or  at  least, 
in  immediate  contact  with  decision  and  intensity  of  purpose. 

2.  But  in  our  intent  prosecution  of  this  analysis,  and  use  of 
those  appropriate  terms  which  are  employed  for  expressing  the 
results  of  it,  we  have  often  to  desert  the  common  language,  and 
are  apt  to  lose  sight  of  certain  great  and  palpable  truths,  of  which 
that  language  is  the  ordinary  vehicle.  When  tracing  the  inter- 
mediate steps,  between  the  first  exposure  of  the  mind  to  a  sedu- 
cing influence,  and  the  deed  or  perpetration  of  enormity  into 
which  it  is  hurried,  we  are  engaged  in  what  may  properly  be 
termed  a  physical  inquiry — as  much  so  as,  when  passing  from 
cause  to  consequent,  we  are  attending  to  any  succession  or  train 


INTELLECT    AND    THE    WILL.  267 

of  phenomena  in  the  material  world.  But  it  is  when  thus  em- 
ployed that  we  are  so  apt  to  lose  sight  of  the  moral  character  of  that 
which  we  are  contemplating  ;  and  to  forget  when  or  at  what  point 
of  the  series  it  is  that  the  designation  whether  of  virtuous  or 
vicious,  the  charge  whether  of  merit  or  demerit,  comes  to  he 
applicable.*  It  is  well  that,  amid  all  the  difficulties  attendant  on 
the  physiological  inquiry,  there  should  be  such  a  degree  of  clear- 
ness and  uniformity  in  the  moral  judgments  of  men — insomuch 
that  the  peasant  can,  with  a  just  and  prompt  discernment  equal 
to  that  of  the  philosopher,  seize  on  the  real  moral  characteristics  of 
any  action  submitted  to  his  notice,  and  pronounce  on  the  merit 
or  demerit  of  him  who  has  performed  it.  It  is  in  attending  to 
these  popular  or  rather  universal  decisions,  that  we  learn  those 
phenomena  which  are  of  main  importance  to  our  argument — now 
that,  after  having  bestowed  a  separate  attention  on  the  moral  and 
intellectual  constitutions  of  human  nature,  wc  are  investigating 
the  connexion  which  is  between  them. 

3.  The  first  of  those  popular  or  rather  universal  decisions, 
which  we  shall  at  present  notice,  is,  that  nothing  is  moral  or  im- 
moral which  is  not  voluntary.  A  murderer  may  be  conceived, 
instead  of  striking  with  the  dagger  in  his  own  hand,  to  force  it, 
by  an  act  of  refined  cruelty,  into  the  hand  of  him,  who  is  the  dear- 
est relative  or  friend  of  his  devoted  victim  ;  and,  by  his  superior 
strength,   to  compel  the  struggling  and  the  reluctant  instmment 

+  Dr.  Brown  has  well  distinguished  between  the  two  inquiries  in  the  following 
sentences..  "  In  one  very  important  respect,  however,  the  inquiries,  relating  to  the 
physiology  of  mind,  differ  from  those  which  relate  to  the  physiolog}'  of  our  animal  frame. 
If  we  could  render  ourselves  acquainted  with  the  intimate  structure  of  our  bodily  or- 
gans, and  all  the  changes  which  take  place,  in  the  exercise  of  their  various  functions, 
our  labour,  with  respect  to  them,  might  be  said  to  terminate.  But  though  our  intellec- 
tual analysis  were  perfect,  so  that  we  could  distinguish,  in  our  most  complex  thought  or 
emotion,  its  constituent  elements,  and  ti'ace  with  exactness  the  series  of  simpler 
thoughts  which  have  progressively  given  rise  to  them,  other  imjuiries,  equally  or  still 
more  important,  would  remain.  We  do  not  know  all  which  is  to  be  known  of  the  mind 
when  we  know  all  its  phenomena,  as  we  know  all  which  can  be  knov\Ti  of  matter,  when 
we  know  the  appearances  which  it  presents,  in  every  situation  in  which  it  is  possible  to 
place  it,  and  the  manner  in  which  it  tlien  acts  or  is  acted  upon  by  other  bodies.  When 
we  know  that  man  has  certain  affections  and  passions,  there  still  remains  the  great 
inquiry,  as  to  the  propriety  or  impropriety  of  these  passions,  and  of  the  conduct  to  which 
they  lead.  We  have  to  consider,  not  only  how  he  is  capable  of  acting,  but  also, 
whether,  acting  in  the  manner  supposed,  he  would  be  fulfilling  a  duty  or  perpetrating 
a  crime.  Every  enjoyment  which  man  can  confer  on  man,  and  ever\'  evil  which  he 
can  reciprocally  inflict  or  suffer,  thus  become  objects  of  two  sciences — first  of  that  in- 
tellectual analysis  which  traces  the  happiness  and  misery,  in  their  various  forms  and 
sequences,  as  mere  phenomena  or  states  of  the  substance  mind  ; — and  secondly,  of  that 
ethical  judgment,  which  measures  our  approbation  and  disapprobation,  estimating,  with 
more  than  judicial  scrutiny,  not  merely  what  is  done,  but  what  is  scarcely  thought  in 
secrecy  and  silence,  and  discriminating  some  element  of  moral  good  or  evil,  in  all  the 
physical  good  and  evil,  which  it  is  in  our  feeble  power  to  execute,  or  in  our  still  frailer 
heart  to  conceive  and  desire."     Brorm's  Lectures,  Lecture  I. 


268  CONNEXION  BETWEEN  THE 

to  its  grasp.  He  may  thus  confine  it  to  the  hand,  and  give  im- 
pulse to  the  arm  of  one,  who  recoils  in  utmost  horror  from  that 
perpetration,  of  which  he  has  been  made  as  it  were  the  material 
engine  ;  and  could  matters  be  so  contrived,  as  that  the  real  mur- 
derer should  be  invisible,  while  the  arm  and  the  hand  that 
inclosed  the  weapon,  and  the  movements  of  the  ostensible  one, 
should  alone  be  patent  to  the  eye  of  the  senses — then  he  and  not 
the  other  would  be  held  by  the  by-stander  as  chargeable  with  the 
guilt.  But  so  soon  as  the  real  nature  of  the  transaction  came  to 
be  understood,  this  imputation  would  be  wholly  and  instantly 
transferred.  The  distinction  would  at  once  be  recognized  be- 
tween the  willing  agent  in  this  deed  of  horror,  and  the  unwilling 
instrument.  There  would  no  more  of  moral  blame  be  attached 
to  the  latter,  than  to  the  weapon  which  inflicted  the  mortal  blow  ; 
and  on  the  former  exclusively,  the  whole  burthen  of  the  crime  and 
its  condemnation  would  be  laid.  And  the  simple  diff*erence 
which  gives  rise  to  the  whole  of  this  moral  distinction  in  the  es- 
timate between  them,  is,  that  mth  the  one  the  act  was  with  the 
will  ;  with  the  other  it  was  against  it. 

4.  The  will  may  be  spoken  of  either  as  a  faculty  of  the  mind, 
or,  it  may  denote  one  separate  and  individual  act  of  willing.  He 
willed  to  take  a  walk  ^vith  me.  It  was  his  will  so  to  do.  But 
there  is  another  term  which  is  more  properly  expressive  of  the 
act,  and  is  not  at  all  expressive  of  the  faculty.  Those  terms 
which  discriminate,  and  which  restrict  language  to  a  special 
meaning,  are  very  convenient  both  in  science  and  in  common  life. 
The  will  then  may  express  both  the  faculty  and  the  act  of  willing. 
But  the  act  of  Avilling  has  been  further  expressed  by  a  term  ap- 
propriated wholly  to  itself — and  that  is,  vohtion.  Mr.  Locke 
defines  volition  to  be  "  an  act  of  the  mind,  knowingly,  exerting 
that  dominion  it  takes  itself  to  have  over  any  part  of  the  man,  by 
employing  it  in,  or  withholding  it  from  any  particular  action." 
And  Dr.  Reid  more  briefly,  but  to  the  same  effect,  says  that  it  is 
— "  the  determination  of  the  mind  to  do  or  not  to  do  something 
which  we  conceive  to  be  in  our  power."  He  very  properly  re- 
marks, however,  that,  after  all,  determination  is  only  another  word 
for  volition ;  and  he  excuses  himself,  at  the  same  time,  from 
giving  any  other  more  logical  definition — on  the  plea,  that  simple 
acts  of  the  mind  do  not  admit  of  one. 

5.  There  is  certainly  a  ground,  in  the  nature  and  actual  work- 
ings of  the  mental  constitution,  for  the  distinction,  which  has 
been  questioned  of  late,  between  will  and  desire.  Desire  has 
been  thus  defined  by  Locke — "It  is  the  uneasiness  man  finds  in 
himself,  upon  the  absence  of  any  thing,  whose  present  enjoy- 
ment carries  the  idea  of  delight  \vith  it" — an  uneasiness  which 


INTELLECT    AND    THE    WILL.  269 

many  may  remember  to  have  felt  in  their  younger  days,  at  the 
sight  of  an  apple  of  tempting  physiognomy,  that  they  would  fain 
have  laid  hold  of,  but  were  restrained  from  touching  by  other 
considerations.  The  desire  is  just  the  liking  that  one  has  for 
the  apple  ;  and  by  its  effectual  solicitations,  it  may  gain  over  the 
will  to  its  side — in  which  case,  through  the  medium  of  a  volition, 
the  apple  is  laid  hold  of,  and  turned  to  its  natural  application. 
But  the  will  may,  and  often  does,  refuse  its  consent ;  and  we 
then  better  perceive  the  distinction  between  the  desire  and  the 
will,  when  we  thus  see  them  in  a  state  of  opposition — or  when 
the  mgency  of  the  desire  is  met  by  other  urgencies,  which  re- 
strain the  indulgence  of  it.  One  might  be  conceived,  as  having 
the  greatest  appetency  for  the  fruit,  and  yet  knowing  it  to  be 
injurious  to  his  health — so  that  however  strong  his  desires,  his 
will  keeps  its  ground  against  their  solicitations.  Or  he  may  wish 
to  reserve  it  for  one  of  his  infant  children  ;  and  so  his  will  sides 
with  the  second  desire  against  the  first,  and  cr.rries  this  latter  one 
into  execution.  Or  he  may  reflect,  after  all,  that  the  apple  is 
not  his  own  property,  or  that  perhaps  he  could  not  pull  it  from 
among  the  golden  crowds  and  clusters  arovmd  it,  without  injury 
to  the  tree  upon  which  it  is  hanging ;  and  so  he  is  led  by  the 
sense  of  justice  to  keep  both  the  one  and  the  other  desire  at  obey- 
ance — and  the  object  of  temptation  remains  untouched,  just  be- 
cause the  will  combats  the  desire  histead  of  complying  with  it, 
and  refuses  to  issue  that  mandate,  or  in  other  words,  to  put  forth 
that  volition,  which  would  instantly  be  tbllovved  up  by  an  act  and 
an  accomplishment.  And  thus,  however  good  the  tree  is  for 
food,  and  however  pleasant  to  the  eyes,  and  however  much  to  be 
desired,  so  as  to  make  one  taste  and  be  satisfied — yet,  if  strong 
enough  in  all  these  determinations  of  prudence  or  principle,  he 
may  look  on  the  fruit  thereof  and  not  eat. 

6.  Dr.  Brown  and  others  would  say,  that  there  is  nothing  in 
this  process,  but  the  contest  of  opposite  desires  and  the  preva- 
lence of  the  strongest  one — and  so  identify  will  and  desire  with 
each  other.*     But  though  a  volition  should  be  the  sure  result  of 

*  Edwards,  al  tlie  outset  of  his  treatisu  on  the  Will,  controverts  Lockp ;  but  in 
such  a  way  as  reduces  the  difference  between  them  very  much  to  a  question  of  no- 
menclature. On  the  one  hand,  the  difference  between  a  volition  and  a  desire  does  not 
affect  the  main  doctrine  of  Jonathan  Edwards  ;  for,  though  volitions  be  distinct  from 
desires,  they  may  nevertheless  be  the  strict  and  unvarying  results  of  them.  Even 
Edwards  himself  seems  to  admit,  that  the  mind  has  a  different  object  in  willing  from 
what  it  has  in  desiring — an  act  of  our  own  being  the  object  of  the  one  ;  the  thing  de- 
sired being  the  object  of  the  other.  It  serves  to  mark  more  strikingly  the  distinction 
between  willing  and  desiring,  when  even  an  act  of  our  own  is  the  proper  object  of  each 
of  them.  There  may  be  a  great  desire  to  inflict  a  blow  on  an  offender  ;  but  this  de- 
sire, restrained  by  considerations  of  prudence  or  principle,  may  not  pass  into  a  voli- 
tion.    Edwards  would  say  that  even  here  the  volition  docs  not  run  counter  to  the 

23* 


270  CONNEXION    BETWEEN    THE 

a  desire,  that  is  no  more  reason  why  they  should  be  identified, 
than  why  the  prior  term  of  any  series  in  nature  should  be  identi- 
fied or  confounded,  with  any  of  its  posterior  terms,  whether  more 
or  less  remote.     In  the  process  that  we  have  been  describing, 
there  were  different  desires  in  play,  but  there  were  not  different 
volitions   in  play.      There  was  one    volition    appended  to  the 
strongest  desire  :   but  the  other  desires  though  felt  by  the  mind, 
and  therefore  in  actual  being,  had  no  volitions  appended  to  them 
—proving  that  a  desire  may  exist  separately  from  the  volition  that 
is  proper  to  it,  and  that  therefore  the  two  are  separate  and  dis- 
tinct from  each  other.     The  truth  is,  using  Dr.   Brown's  own 
language,  the  mind  is  in  a  different  state  when  framing  a  volition, 
from  what  it  is  when  feeling  a  desire.     When  feeling  a  desire, 
the  mind  has  respect  to  the  object  desired — which  object,  then 
in  view  of  the  mind,  is  acting  with  its  own  peculiar  influence  on 
a  mental  susceptibility.     When  framing  a  volition  the  mind  has 
respect,  not  properly  to  the  object,  but  to  the  act  by  which  it 
shall  attain  the  object — and  so  is  said  to  be  putting  forth  a  men- 
tal power.*    But  whether  this  distinction  be  accurately  ex})ressed 
or  not,  certain  it  is,  the  mind  is  differently  conditioned,  when  in 
but  a  state  of  simple  desire — from  what  it  is  when  in  the  act  of 
conceiving  a  volition.     It  is  engaged  with  different  thing.^,  and 
looking  different  ways — in  the  one  case  to  the  antecedent  object 
which  has  excited  the  desire,  in  the  other  case  to  the  posterior 
act  on  which  the  will  has  determined  for  the  attainment  of  the 
object.     The  palsied  man  who  cannot  stretch  forth  his  hand  to 
the  apple  that  is  placed  in  the  distance  before  him,  may,  never- 
theless, long  after  it ;   and  in  him  we  perceive  desire  singly — for 
he  is  restrained  by  very  helplessness  from  putting  forth  a  volition, 
the  proper  object  of  which  is  some  action  of  our  own,  and  that 
we  know  to  be  in  our  own  power.      We  accept  with  great  plea- 
sure of  that  simplification  by  Dr.  Brown,  in  virtue  of  which  we 
regard  the  mind  not  as  a  congeries  of  different  faculties,  but  as, 
itself  one  and  indivisible,  having  the  capacity  of  passing  into  dif- 
ferent states  ;  and  without  conceiving  any  distinction  of  faculties, 
we  only  affirm  that  it  is  in  a  different  state  when  it  wills,  from 
that  in  which  it  is  Avhen  it  simply  desires.     Notwithstanding  the 
high  authority  both  of  Dr.  Brown  and  Mr.  Mill,  we  think  that  in 

desire,  but  only  marks  the  prevalenee  of  the  stronger  desire  over  the  weaker  one. 
Now  this  is  true  ;  but  without  at  all  obliterating  the  distinction  for  which  we  contend. 
The  volition  does  run  counter  to  the  weaker  desire,  though  under  the  impulse  of  the 
stronger,  and  there  are  three  distinct  mental  phenomena  in  this  instance,  the  stronger 
desire,  the  weaker  desire  and  the  volition,  which  ought  no  more  to  be  confounded, 
than  any  movement  with  the  motive  forces  that  gave  rise  to  it,  or  than  the  posterior 
with  the  prior  term  of  any  sequence. 

*  See  Art.  1.  of  this  Chapter. 


INTELLECT    AND    THE    WILL.  271 

confounding  these  two,  they  have  fallen  into  an  erroneous  sim- 
pHfication ;  and  we  abide  by  the  distinction  of  Dugald  Stewart 
and  the  older  writers  upon  this  subject.* 

7.  But  the  point  of  deepest  interest  is  that  step  of  the  process, 
at  which  the  character  of  right  or  wrong  comes  to  be  applicable. 
It  is  not  at  that  point,  when  the  appetites  or  affections  of  our  na- 
ture solicit  from  the  will  a  particular  movement ;  neither  is  it  at 
that  point,  when  either  a  rational  self  love  or  a  sense  of  duty  re- 
monstrates against  it.  It  is  not  at  that  point  when  the  consent 
of  the  will  is  pleaded  for,  on  the  one  side  or  other — but  all-im- 
portant to  be  borne  in  mind,  it  is  at  that  point  when  the  consent 
is  given.  When  we  characterize  a  court  at  law  for  some  one  of 
its  deeds — it  is  not  upon  the  urgency  of  the  argument  on  one 
side  of  the  question,  or  of  the  reply  upon  the  other,  that  we  found 
our  estimate ;  but  wholly  upon  the  decision  of  the  bench,  which 
decision  is  carried  into  effect  by  a  certain  order  given  out  to  the 
officers  who  execute  it.  And  so,  in  characterising  an  individual 
for  some  one  of  his  doings,  we  found  our  estimate,  not  upon  the 
desires  of  appetite  that  may  have  instigated  him  on  the  one  hand, 

*  Hume  says  very  well  of  desire,  that — "  It  arises  from  good  considered  simply  and 
aversion  from  evil.  The  will  again  exerts  itself,  when  cither  the  presence  of  tlie  good 
or  aljsence  of  the  evil  maybe  attained  by  any  action  of  the  mind  or  body."  This  is 
the  definition  of  Hume,  and  it  is  a  very  good  one.  And  it  tallies  with  the  sensible  re- 
mark of  Dr.  Rcid,tliat  the  object  of  every  volition  is  some  action  of  our  own.  And 
ujion  this  he  founds  some  very  clear  illustrations  of  the  difference  that  there  is  between 
a  desire  and  a  volition.  "  A  man  desires  that  his  children  may  be  happy,  and  that 
tliev  may  behave  well.  Their  being  happy  is  no  action  at  all ;  and  their  behaving 
well  is  not  his  action  but  theirs."  "  A  man  athirst  has  a  strong  desire  to  drink  ;  but 
for  some  particular  reason  he  determines  not  to  gratify  his  desire."  Here  the  man 
has  the  desire  but  not  tlie  will.  Jn  other  cases  he  may  have  the  will  but  not  the  de- 
sire. "  A  man  for  health  may  take  a  nauseous  drug,  for  which  he  has  no  desire, 
but  a  treat  aversion."  Desire,  therefore,  is  not  will  ;  but  only  one  of  the  incitements 
that  often  leads  to  it — though  it  may  at  all  times  be,  and  actually  sometimes  is  with- 
stood. It  is,  however,  because  desire  is  so  often  accompanied  by  will,  that  we  are 
a|>t  to  overlook  the  distinction  between  them. 

1  may  here  observe  that  to  frame  a  volition  is  sometimes  expressed  more  shortly  by 
the  phrase,  to  will.  I  will  put  forth  my  hand,  is  different  fi-om,  I  desire  to  put  it  forth. 
There  may  be  reasons  why  I  should  restrain  the  desire — so  that  though  I  desire  it,  I 
I  may  not  will  it.  For  this  application  of  the  Verb  to  will,  we  have  the  authority  of 
the  best  English  writers.  "  Whoever,"  says  Dr.  South,  "  wills  the  dohig  of  a  thing, 
if  the  doing  of  it  be  in  his  power,  he  will  certainly  do  it ;  and  whoever  does  not  do  the 
tiling  which  he  has  in  his  power  to  do,  does  not  properly  v.'ill  if."  And  Locke  says, 
"  the  man  that  sits  still  is  said  to  be  at  liberty,  because  he  can  walk  if  he  wills  it." 
Dr.  South  makes  a  happy  discrimination,  which  serves  to  throw  light  upon  the  precise 
nature  of  a  volition  as  opposed  to  other  things  that  may  or  may  not  lead  to  a  volition — 
when  he  says,  "  that  there  is  as  much  difl'erence  between  the  approbation  of  the 
judgment  and  the  actual  volitions  of  the  will,  as  between  a  man's  viewing  a  desirable 
thing,  and  reaching  after  it  w  ith  his  hand."  He  further  says  of  a  wish,  which  is 
nought  but  a  longing  desire,  that — '•  a  wish  is  properly  the  desire  of  a  man  who  is  sit- 
ting or  lying  still ;  but  an  act  of  the  will  is  a  man  of  business  vigorously  going  about 
his  work." 


272 


CONNEXION    BETWEEN    THE 


or  Upon  the  dictates  of  conscience  that  may  have  withstood  these 
upon  the  other — not  upon  the  elements  that  conflicted  in  the 
struggle,  but  on  the  determination  that  put  an  end  to  it — even 
that  determination  of  the  will,  which  is  carried  into  effect  by 
those  volitions,  on  the  issuing  of  which,  the  hands,  and  the  feet, 
and  the  other  instruments  of  action  are  put  into  instant  sub- 
serviency. 

8.  To  prove  how  essentially  linked  together,  the  morality  of 
any  act  is  with  its  wilfulness,  it  is  of  no  consequence,  whether 
the  volition  that  gave  rise  to  the  act,  be  the  one  which 
preceded  it  immediately  as  its  proximate  cause,  or  be  a  re- 
mote and  anterior  volition — in  which  latter  case,  it  is  termed  a 
purpose,  conceived  at  some  period  which  may  have  long  gone 
by,  but  which  was  kept  unalterable  till  the  opportunity  for  its  exe- 
cution came  round.*  There  may  be  an  interval  of  time,  between 
that  resolution  of  the  will  which  is  effective,  and  that  perform- 
ance by  which  it  is  carried  into  effect.  One  may  resolve  to-day, 
with  full  consent  and  purpose  of  the  will,  on  some  criminal  en- 
terprise for  to-morrow.  It  is  to-day  that  he  has  become  the 
criminal,  and  has  incurred  a  guilt  to  which  even  the  performance 
of  the  morrow  may  bring  no  addition  and  no  enhancement.  1  he 
performance  of  to-morrow  does  not  constitute  the  guilt,  but  only 
indicates  it.  Tt  may  prove  what  before  the  execution  of  the  will 
was  still  an  uncertainty.  It  may  prove  the  strength  of  that 
determination  which  has  been  already  taken — how  it  can  stand 
its  ground  through  all  the  hours  which  intervene  between  the 
desire  and  its  fulfilment  ;  how  meanwhile  the  visitations  of 
reflection  and  remorse  have  been  kept  at  a  distance,  or  all  been 
disregarded  ;  how  with  relentless  depravity,  the  purpose  has  been 
adhered  to,  and  the  remonstrances  of  conscience  or  perhaps  the 
entreaties  of  virtuous  friendship  have  all  been  set  at  nought ; 
how,  with  a  hardihood  that  could  brave  alike  the  disgrace  and 
the  condenmation  which  attach  to  moral  worthlessness,  he  could 
proceed  with  unfaltering  step  from  the  reprobate  design  to  its  full 
and  final  accomplishment — nor  suffer  all  the  suggestions  of  his 
leisure  and  solitude,  however  affecting  the  thought  of  that  inno- 
cence which  he  is  now  on  the  eve  of  forfeiting,  or  a  tenderness 
for  those  relatives  who  are  to  be  deeply  wounded  by  the  tidings 
of  his  fall,  or  the  authority  of  a  father's  parting  advice,  or  the  re- 
membrance of  a  mother's  prayers,  to  stay  his  hand. 

*  It  is  true  that  if  the  desire  were  to  cease  for  the  object  to  be  attained  by  the  pro- 
{K)sed  act,  the  purpose  would  cease  along  with  it,  but  it  were  confounding  the  things 
which  in  reality  are  distinct  from  each  other,  to  represent  on  this  account  the  desiro 
and  the  purpose  as  sj-nonymous.  The  one  respects  the  object  that  is  wished  for  ;  the 
other  respects  the  action,  by  which  the  object  is  to  be  attained. 


INTELLECT    AND    THE    WILL.  273 

9.  That  an  action  then  be  the  rightful  object,  either  of  moral 
censure,  or  approval,  it  must  have  had  the  consent  of  the  will  to 
go  along  with  it.  It  must  be  the  fruit  of  a  volition — else  it  is 
utterly  beyond  the  scope,  either  of  praise  for  its  vivtuousness  or 
of  blame  for  its  criminality.  If  an  action  be  involuntary,  it  is  as 
unfit  a  subject  for  any  moral  reckoning,  as  are  the  pulsations 
of  the  wrist.  Something  ludicrous  might  occur,  which  all  of  a 
sudden  sets  one  irresistibly  on  the  action  of  laughing  ;  or  a  tale 
of  distress  might  be  told,  which  whether  he  wills  or  not,  forces 
from  him  the  tears  of  sympathy,  and  sets  him  as  irresistibly  on 
the  action  of  weeping  ;  or,  on  the  appearance  of  a  ferocious  ani- 
mal, he  might  struggle  with  all  his  power  for  a  serene  and  manly 
firmness,  yet  struggle  in  vain  against  the  action  of  trembling  ;  or 
if  instead  of  a  formidable  a  loathsome  animal  was  presented  to 
his  notice,  he  might  no  more  help  the  action  of  a  violent  recoil 
perhaps  antipathy  against  it,  than  he  can  help  any  of  the  organic 
necessities  of  that  constitution  which  has  been  given  to  him  ;  or 
even  upon  the  observation  of  what  is  disgusting  in  the  habit  or 
countenance  of  a  fellow  man,  he  may  be  overpowered  into  a 
sudden  and  sensitive  aversion  ;  and  lastly,  should  some  gross 
and  grievous  transgression  against  the  decencies  of  civilized  life 
be  practised  before  him,  he  might  no  more  be  able  to  stop  that 
rush  of  blood  to  the  complexion  which  marks  the  inward  work- 
ings of  an  outraged  and  offended  delicacy,  than  he  is  able  to  alter 
or  suspend  the  law  of  its  circulation.  In  each  of  these  cases  the 
action  is  involuntary ;  and  precisely  because  it  is  so,  the  epithet 
neither  of  morally  good  nor  of  morally  evil  can  be  applied  to  it. 
And  so  of  every  action  that  comes  thus  to  speak  of  its  own  ac- 
cord ;  and  not  at  the  will  or  bidding  of  the  agent.  It  may  be 
painful  to  himself.  It  may  also  be  painful  to  others.  But  if  it 
have  not  had  the  consent  of  his  will,  even  that  consent  without 
Avhich  no  action  that  is  done  can  be  called  voluntary,  it  is  his 
misfortune  and  not  his  choice  ;  and  though  not  indifferent  in 
regard  to  its  consequences  on  the  happiness  of  man,  yet,  merely 
because  disjoined  from  the  will,  it  in  point  of  moral  estimation  is 
an  act  of  the  purest  indifference. 

10.  How  then,  it  may  be  asked,  can  any  moral  character  be 
affixed  to  an  emotion,  which  seems  to  be  an  organic  or  patholo- 
gical phenomenon,  wherewith  the  will  may  have  little,  perhaps 
nothing  to  do.  Nothing  we  have  affirmed  is  either  virtuous  or 
vicious,  unless  the  voluntary  in  some  way  intermingles  with  it ; 
and  how  then  shall  we  vindicate  the  moral  rank  which  is  com- 
monly assigned  to  the  mere  susceptibilities  of  our  nature  ?  We 
regard  compassion  as  a  virtuous  sensibility  ;  and  we  regard  ma- 
lignity, or  licentiousness,  or  envy,  as  so  many  depraved  affec- 


274  CONNEXION  BETWEEN  THE 

tions  ;  and  yet,  on  our  principle,  they  are  virtuous  or  vicious, 
only  in  so  far  as  they  are  wilful.  It  is  clearly  at  the  bidding  of 
his  will,  that  a  man  acts  with  his  hand,  and  therefore  we  are  at  no 
loss  to  hold  him  responsible  for  his  doings  ;  but  we  must  learn 
how  it  is  at  the  bidding  of  his  will  that  he  feels  with  his  heart,  ere 
we  can  hold  him  responsible  for  his  desires.  If  apart  from  the 
will,  there  be  neither  moral  worth  nor  moral  worthlessness — if  it 
be  implied  in  the  very  notion  of  desert  that  the  will  has  had  some 
concern  in  that  which  we  thus  characterize — if  neither  actions 
nor  affections  are,  without  volitions,  susceptible  of  any  moral 
reckoning — it  may  require  some  consideration  to  perceive,  how 
far  the  element  of  moral  worth  is  at  all  implicated  in  an  emotion. 
If  the  emotions  of  sympathy  be  as  much  the  result  of  an  organic 
frame-work  as  the  emotions  of  taste,  and  if  this  be  true  of  all  the 
emotions — it  remains  to  be  seen,  why  either  praise  or  censure 
should  be  awarded  to  any  of  them.  Whether  an  emotion  of 
taste  arises  within  me  at  the  sight  of  beauty,  or  an  emotion  of 
pity  at  the  sight  of  distress — the  mind  may  have  been  as  passive, 
or  there  may  have  been  as  much  of  the  strictly  pathological  in 
the  one  emotion  as  in  the  other. 

11.  Now  it  may  be  very  true,  that  the  will  has  as  little  to  do 
with  that  pathological  law,  by  which  the  sight  of  distress  awakens 
in  my  bosom  an  emotion  of  pity,  as  with  that  other  pathological 
law  by  which  the  sight  of  a  red  object  impresses  on  my  retina  the 
sensation  peculiar  to  that  colour.  Yet  the  will,  though  not  the 
proximate,  may  have  been  the  remote  and  so  the  real  cause,  both 
of  the  emotion  and  sensation  notwithstanding.  It  may  have 
been  at  the  bidding  of  my  will,  that,  instead  of  hiding  myself, 
from  my  own  flesh,  I  visited  a  scene  of  wretchedness,  and  enter- 
ed within  the  confines  as  it  were  of  that  pathological  influence, 
in  virtue  of  which,  after  that  the  spectacle  of  suffering  was  seen 
the  compassion  was  unavoidable.  And  it  is  also  at  the  bidding 
of  my  will,  that  I  place  myself  within  view  of  an  object  of  sense  ; 
that  I  direct  my  eye  towards  it,  and  keep  it  open  to  that  sensation, 
which,  after  the  circumstances  that  I  have  voluntarily  reali- 
zed, is  equally  unavoidable.  I  might  have  escaped  from  the 
emotion,  had  I  so  willed,  by  keeping  aloof  from  the  spectacle 
which  awakened  it.  And  I  might  escape  from  the  sensation,  if 
I  so  will,  by  shutting  my  eyes,  or  turning  them  away  from  the 
object  which  is  its  cause  ;  or,  in  other  words,  by  the  command 
which  I  have  over  the  looking  faculty  that  belongs  to  me.  And 
perhaps  the  mind  has  a  looking  faculty  as  well  as  the  body,  in 
virtue  of  which,  as  by  the  one  objects  are  either  removed  from, 
or  made  present  to  the  sight,  so  by  the  other,  objects  may  be 
either  removed  from,  or  made  present  to  the  thoughts.     Could 


INTELLECT    AND    THE    WILL.  275 

we  ascertain  the  existence  and  operations  of  such  a  faculty,  this 
would  explain  how  it  is,  that  the  emotions  are  sub'ordinated  not 
immediately  but  mediately  to  the  will — that  the  mind  by  the  di- 
rection of  its  looking  faculty  towards  the  counterpart  objects, 
could,  on  the  one  hand,  will  these  emotions  into  being  ;  or  by 
the  direction  of  it  away  from  these  objects,  could,  on  the  other 
hand,  will  them  again  into  extinction.  Such  we  hold  to  be  the 
faculty  o(  attention.  It  forms  the  great  link  between  the  intellec- 
tual and  moral  departments  of  our  nature  ;  or  between  the  per- 
cipient and  what  has  already  been  named  the  pathematic  depart- 
ments. It  is  the  control  which  the  will  has  over  this  faculty 
that  makes  man  responsible  for  the  objects  which  he  chooses  to 
entertain,  and  so  responsible  for  the  emotions  which  pathologi- 
cally result  from  them. 

12.  If  it  be  by  a  voluntary  act  that  he  comes  to  see  certain 
objects,  then,  whatever  the  emotions  are  which  are  awakened  by 
these  objects,  he  may  be  said  to  have  willed  them  into  being.  In 
like  manner,  if  it  be  by  a  voluntary  act  that  he  comes  to  think  of 
certain  objects,  then,  may  it  also  be  said,  that  he  wills  all  the 
emotions  which  follow  in  their  train.  It  is  admitted  on  all  hands, 
that,  by  the  power  which  the  will  has  over  the  muscles  of  the  hu- 
man frame,  it  can  either  summon  into  presence  or  bid  away  cer- 
tain objects  of  sight.  And,  notwithstanding  the  effect  which  the 
expositions  of  certain  metaphysical  reasoners  have  had,  in  ob- 
scuring the  process,  it  is  also  admitted,  almost  universally,  that, 
by  the  power  which  the  will  has  over  the  thinking  processes,  it 
can  either  summon  into  presence  or  bid  away  certain  objects  of 
thought.  The  faculty  of  attention  we  regard  as  the  great  instru- 
ment for  the  achievement  of  this — the  ligament  which  binds  the 
one  department  of  our  constitution  to  the  other — the  messenger, 
to  whose  wakefulness  and  activity  we  owe  all  those  influences, 
which  pass  and  repass  in  constant  succession  between  our  moral 
and  intellectual  nature. 

13.  Dr.  Reid,  in  his  book  on  the  active  powers,  has  a  most 
important  chapter  on  those  operations  of  the  mind  that  are  called 
voluntary.  Among  these,  he  gives  a  foremost  place  to  attention 
— where,  instead  however  of  any  profound  or  careful  analysis, 
he  presents  us  with  a  number  of  very  sensible  remarks  ;  and  from 
the  undoubted  part  which  the  will  has  in  the  guidance  and  exer- 
cise of  this  faculty,  he  comes  to  the  sound  conclusion,  that  a  great 
part  of  wisdom  and  virtue  consists  in  giving  the  proper  direction 
to  it. 

14.  Dugald  Stewart  ranks  attention  among  the  intellectual 
faculties  ; — and  seems  to  regard  it  as  an  original  power,  which 
had  very  much  escaped  the  notice  of  former  observers.    But  Dr. 


276  CONNEXION    BETWEEN    THE 

Brown  we  hold  to  have  been  far  the  most  successful  in  his  ex- 
positions of  this  faculty  ;  and  by  which  he  makes  it  evident,  that 
it  is  not  more  distinct  from  the  mental  perception  of  any  object 
of  thought,  than  the  faculty  of  looking  to  any  object  of  sight,  is 
distinct  from  the  faculty  of  seeing  it. 

15.   In  his  chapter  on  the  external  affections  combined  with 
desire,  he  institutes  a  beautiful  analysis  ;  in  the  conduct  of  which, 
he   has  thrown  the  magic  tints  of  poetry  over  a  process  of  very 
abstract  but  conclusive  reasoning.     We  fear,  that,  in  this  age  of 
superficial  readers,  the  public  are  far  from  being  adequately  aware 
of  that  wondrous  combination  of  talent,  which  this  singularly  gifted 
individual  realized  in  his  own  person  ;  and  with  what  facility,  yet 
elegance,  he  could  intersperse  the   graces  of  fancy,  among  the 
demonstrations  of  a  most  profound  and  original  metaphysics. 
The  passage  to  which  we  now  refer,  is  perhaps  the  finest  exem- 
plification of  this  in  all  his  volumes  ;  and  though  we  can  hardly 
hope,  that  the  majority,  even  of  the  well  educated,  will  ever  be 
tempted  to  embark  on  his  adventurous  speculations — yet  many, 
we  doubt  not,  have  been  led  by  the  fascination  of  his  minor  ac- 
complishments, to  brave   the  depths  and  the  difficulties  of  that 
masterly  course  which  he  has  given  to  the  world.     For  among 
the  steeps  and  the  arduous  elevations  of  that  high  walk  which  he 
has   taken,  he  kindly  provides  the  reader  with  many  a  resting 
place — some  enchanted  spot,   over  which  the  hand  of  taste  hath 
thrown  her  choicest  decorations  ;  or  where,  after  the  fatigues  and 
the  triumphs  of  successful  intellect,   the  traveller  may  from  the 
eminence  that  he  has  won,  look  abroad  on  some  sweet  or  noble 
perspective,  which  the  great  master  whose  footsteps  he  follows 
hath  thrown  open  to  his  gaze.     It  is  thus  that  there  is  a  constant 
relief  and  refreshment  afforded  along  that  ascending  way,  which 
but  for  this  would  be  most  severely  intellectual ;  and  if  never  was 
philosophy  more  abstruse,  yetnever  was  it  seasoned  so  exquisitely, 
or  spread  over  a  page  so  rich  in  all  those  attic  delicacies  of  the 
imagination  and  the  style  which  could  make  the  study  of  it  at- 
tractive. 

16.  There  is  a  philosophy  not  more  solid  or  more  sublime  of 
achievement  than  his,  but  of  sterner  frame — that  would  spurn 
"  the  fairy  dreams  of  sacred  fountains  and  Elysian  groves  and 
vales  of  bhss."  For  these  he  ever  had  most  benignant  tolera- 
tion, and  himself  sported  among  the  creations  of  poetic  genius. 
We  are  aware  of  nought  more  fascinating,  than  the  kindness  and 
complacency,  wherewith  philosophy,  in  some  of  the  finer  spirits 
of  our  race,  can  make  her  graceful  descent  into  a  humbler  but 
lovelier  region  than  her  own — when  "  the  intellectual  power  bends 
from  his  awful  throne  a  willing  ear  and  smiles." 


INTELLECT  AND  THE  WILL.  277 

17.  "  If,"  says  Dr.  Brown,  "  Nature  has  given  us  the  power 
of  seeing  many  objects  at  once,  she  has  given  us  also  the  faculty 
of  looking  but  to  one — that  is  to  say  of  directing  our  eyes  on  one 
only  of  the  multitude  ;"  and  again,  "  there  are  some  objects 
which  are  more  striking  than  others,  and  which  of  themselves  al- 
most call  us  to  look  at  them.  They  are  the  predominant  objects 
around  which  others  seem  to  arrange  themselves." 

18.  The  difterence  between  seeing  a  thing  and  looking  at  it, 
is  tantamount  to  the  difference  which  there  is,  between  the  mere 
presence  of  a  thought  in  one's  mind  and  the  mind's  attention  to 
that  which  is  the  object  of  thought.  Now  the  look,  according  to 
Dr.  Brown's  analysis,  is  made  up  of  the  simple  external  aiTection 
of  sight,  and  a  desire  to  know  more  about  some  one  of  the  things 
which  we  do  see.  We  think  it  the  natural  consequence  of  the 
error  into  which  he  has  fallen,  of  confounding  the  desire  with  the 
will,  that  he  has  failed  in  giving  a  complete  or  continuous  enough 
description  of  the  process  of  attention — for,  without  any  violence 
to  the  order  of  his  own  very  pecvdiar  contemplations,  he  might 
have  gone  on  to  say,  as  the  effect  of  this  mixed  perception  and 
desire  on  the  part  of  the  observer,  that  he  willed  to  look  to  the 
object  in  question ;  and  he  might  have  spoken  of  the  volition 
which  fastened  his  eye  and  his  attention  upon  it.  Both  he  and 
Mr.  Mill  seem  averse  to  the  interyention  of  the  will  in  this  exer- 
cise at  all — the  one  finding  room  only  for  desire  ;  and  the  other 
for  his  processes  of  association,  ascribing  attention  to  the  mere 
occurrence  of  interesting  sensations  or  ideas  in  the  train.  Now 
if  this  question  is  to  be  decided  by  observation  at  all,  or  by  con- 
sciousness which  is  the  faculty  of  internal  observation,  the  men- 
tal states  of  desiring  and  willing  seem  just  as  distinguishable  as 
any  other  mental  states  whatever.  At  the  time  when  the  mind 
desires,  it  bears  a  respect  towards  the  desirable  object;  at  t!  jc 
time  when  it  wills,  it  bears  a  respect  towards  something  different 
from  this,  to  that  act  of  its  own  which  is  put  forth  for  the  purpose 
of  attaining  the  object.  The  desire  that  is  felt  towards  the  object 
is  specifically  a  distinct  thing,  from  the  volition  v.'hich  prompts  or 
precedes  the  action.  The  desire  may  have  caused  the  volition  ; 
but  this  is  no  reason  why  it  should  be  confounded  v/ith  the  volition. 
And  in  like  manner,  a  feeling  of  interest  in  an  idea,  or  rather  in 
the  object  of  an  idea,  is  quite  distinguishable  from  that  volition 
which  respects  a  something  different  from  this  object — which  re- 
spects an  act  or  exercise  of  the  mind,  even  the  attention  that  we 
shall  give  to  it.  The  interest  that  is  felt  in  any  object  of  thought 
may  have  been  the  cause,  and  the  sole  cause  of  the  attention 
which  we  give  to  it.  But  the  necessary  connexion  which  obtains 
between  the  parts  of  a  process,  is  no  reason  why  we  should  over- 

24 


278  CONNEXION    BETWEEN    THE 

look  any  part,  or  confound  the  different  parts  with  each  other.  In 
this  instance,  Mr.  Hume  seems  to  have  observed  more  accurate- 
ly than  either  of  the  philosophers  whom  we  have  now  named, 
when  he  discriminates  between  the  will  and  the  desire,  and  tells 
us  of  the  former,  that  it  exerts  itself  when  the  thing  desired  is  to 
be  attained  by  any  action  of  the  mind  or  body.  A  volition  is  as 
distinctly  felt  in  the  mental  as  in  the  bodily  process — although  it 
be  in  the  latter  only,  that  the  will  first  acts  on  some  one  of  the 
muscles  as  its  instrument,  and  issues  in  a  visible  movement  as 
its  required  service.  The  power  of  the  will  over  an  intellectual 
process  is  marked  by  the  difference,  the  palpable  difference  which 
there  is,  between  a  regulated  train  of  thought  and  a  passive  re- 
verie. And  there  is  nothing  in  the  intervention  of  the  will  to 
contravene,  or  even  to  modify  the  general  laws  of  association. 
Neither  does  the  wish  to  recover  a  particular  idea,  involve  in  it 
the  incongruity  of  that  idea  being  both  present  with  and  absent 
from  the  mind  at  the  same  time.  We  may  not  have  an  idea  that 
is  absent,  and  yet  have  the  knowledge  of  its  being  related  to 
some  other  idea  that  is  present ;  and  we  therefore  attend  to  this 
latter  idea  and  dwell  upon  it,  for  the  purpose,  as  is  well  express- 
ed by  Mr.  Mill,  of — "  giving  it  the  opportunity  of  exciting  all  the 
ideas  with  which  it  is  associated  ;  for  by  not  attending  to  it,  we 
deprive  it  more  or  less  of  that  opportunity."  It  is  therefore,  as 
he  elsewhere  expresses  it,  that  we  detain  certain  ideas  and  suffer 
others  to  pass.  But  there  is  nothing  inconsistent  with  the  laws 
or  phenomena  of  association,  in  our  saying  of  this  act  of  deten- 
tion that  it  is  a  voluntary  act — that  we  detain  certain  ideas,  be- 
cause we  will  to  detain  them.* 

19.  It  is  this  which  virtuejies  emotion,  even  though  there  be 
nothing  virtuous  which  is  not  voluntary.  It  is  true  that  once 
liie  idea  of  an  object  is  in  the  mind,  its  counterpart  emotion  may, 
by  an  organic  or  pathological  law,  have  come  unbidden  into 
the  heart.  The  emotion  may  have  come  unbidden  ;  but  the 
idea  may  not  have  come  unbidden.  By  an  act  of  the  will,  it 
may,  in  the  way  now  explained,  have  been  summoned  at  the 
first  into  the  mind's  presence  ;  and  at  all  events  it  is  by  a  con- 
tinuous act  of  the  will  that  it  is  detained  and  dwelt  upon.  The 
will  is  not  in  contact  with  the  emotion,  but  it  is  in  contact  with 
the  idea  of  that  object  which  awakens  the  emotion — and  there- 
fore, although  not  in  contact  with  the  emotion,  it  may  be  vested 
with  an  effectual  control  over  it.  It  cannot  bid  compassion  into 
the  bosom,  apart  from  the  object  which  awakens  it ;  but  it  can 
bid  a  personal  entry  into  the  house  of  mourning,  and  then  the 

*  See  the  Chapter  on  the  Will  in  Mill's  analysis  of  the  human  mind. 


INTELLECT    AND    THE    WILL.  279 

compassion  will  flow  apace ;  or  it  can  bid  a  mental  conception 
of  the  bereaved  and  afflicted  family  there,  and  then  the  sensi- 
bility will  equally  arise,  whether  a  suffering  be  seen  or  a  suffer- 
ing be  thought  of.  In  like  manner,  it  cannot  bid  into  the  breast 
the  naked  and  unaccompanied  feeling  of  gratitude  ;  but  it  can 
call  to  recollection,  and  keep  in  recollection  the  kindness  which 
prompts  it — and  the  emotion  follows  in  faithful  attendance  on 
its  counterpart  object.  It  is  thus  that  wo  can  will  the  right 
emotions  into  being,  not  immediately  but  mediately — as  the  love 
of  God,  by  thinking  on  God — a  sentiment  of  friendship,  by 
dwelling  in  contemplation  on  the  congenial  qualities  of  our 
friend — the  admiration  of  moral  excellence,  by  means  of  a 
serious  and  steadfast  attention  to  it.  It  is  thus  too  that  we  bid 
away  the  wrong  emotions,  not  separately  and  in  disjunction 
from  their  objects,  for  the  pathological  law  which  unites  objects 
with  emotion  we  cannot  break  asunder.  But  we  rid  our  heart 
of  the  emotions,  by  ridding  our  mind  of  their  exciting  and  origi- 
nating thoughts  ;  of  anger,  for  example,  by  forgetting  the  in- 
jury ;  or  of  a  licentious  instigation,  by  dismissing  from  our 
fancy  the  licentious  image,  or  turning  our  sight  and  our  eyes 
from  viewing  vanity.  It  is  this  command  of  the  will  over  the 
attention,  v/hich,  transmuting  the  intellectual  into  the  moral, 
makes  duties  of  heedfulness  and  consideration — and  duties  too 
of  prime  importance,  because  of  the  place  \\  liich  attention  occu- 
pies in  the  mental  system,  as  the  great  ligament  between  the 
percipient  and  the  pathematic  parts  of  our  nature.  It  is  by  its 
means  that  the  will  is  made  to  touch  at  least  the  springs  of  emo- 
tion— if  it  do  not  touch  the  emotions  themselves.  The  will 
tells  on  the  sensibilities,  through  an  intermediate  machinery 
which  has  been  placed  at  its  disposal ;  and  thus  it  is,  that  the 
culture  or  regulation  of  the  heart  is  mainly  dependent  on  the  re- 
gulation of  the  thoughts. 

20.  We  may  thus  be  enabled  to  explain,  and  perhaps  more 
clearly  than  before,  the  force  and  inveteracy  of  habit ;  and  that, 
not  by  the  power  of  emotions  to  suggest  emotions,  but  purely 
by  the  power  of  thoughts  to  suggest  thoughts.  In  this  process, 
the  motions  will  of  course  intermingle  with  their  own  counter- 
part thoughts  ;  and  both  ideas  and  feelings  will  succeed  each 
other  in  their  customary  trains  all  the  more  surely,  the  oflener 
it  has  been  suffered  to  pass  unbroken  by  any  intei-vention  of  the 
will,  any  remonstrance  from  the  voice  of  conscience.  It  is  in 
this  way  that  the  wretched  voluptuary,  becomes  every  year 
the  more  helpless  victim  of  his  own  depraved  inclinations — be- 
cause more  and  more  lorded  over  by  those  foul  imaginations, 
which  are  lighted  up  to  him,  from  almost  every  object  he  sees 


280  CONNEXION    BETWEEN    THE 

or  thinks  of;  and  which  now  he  scarcely  has  the  power,  because 
he  never  had  the  honest  or  sustained  will  to  bid  away.  That 
may  truly  be  called  a  moral  chastisement  under  which  he  suf- 
fers. The  more  he  has  sinned,  the  more  helpless  is  the  neces- 
sity under  which  he  lies  of  sinning — a  bondage  strengthened  by 
every  act  of  indulgence,  till  he  may  become  the  irrecoverable 
slave  of  those  passions  which  war  against  the  principles  of  a 
better  and  higher  nature.  And  he  is  domineered  over  by  pas- 
sions, because  domineered  over  by  thoughts  ;  and  it  is  only  by 
the  force  of  mastery  of  counteracting  thoughts,  that  the  spell  is, 
broken — or,  in  other  \vords,  it  is  through  an  intellectual  medium, 
that  the  moral  distemper  is  cleared  away.  If  he  be  rescued 
from  his  delusions  to  sobriety  and  virtue,  ideas  will  be  the  step- 
ping-stones of  his  returning  path — the  sirens  that  will  recall  him 
to  himself,  by  chasing  away  the  fascinations  wherewith  he  is  en- 
compassed. Could  the  percipient  part  of  his  nature  be  set 
right,  the  pathological  part  of  it  would  become  whole.  He 
would  yet  behave  himself  aright,  did  he  only  bethink  himself 
aright ;  and  noble  recoveries  have  been  effected,  even  from 
most  deep  and  hopeless  infatuation,  simply  by  the  power  of 
thoughts — when  made  to  dwell  on  the  distress  of  friends,  the 
poverty  and  despair  of  children,  the  ruin  of  health  as  well  as 
fortune,  the  displeasure  of  an  angry  God,  the  horrors  of  an  un- 
provided death-bed  or  an  undone  eternity.* 

21.  Actions  are  voluntary  in  themselves,  in  that  the  mind  can 
will  them  directly  into  being.  Emotions,  though  not  voluntary  in 
themselves,  are  so  far  voluntary  in  their  proximate  or  immediate 
causes — in  that  the  mind,  to  a  certain  extent,  and  by  the  control 
which  it  has  over  the  faculty  of  attention,  can  will  those  ideas 
into  its  presence  by  which  the  emotions  are  awakened.  It  is 
well  that  man  is  thus  vested,  not  only  with  a  control  over  his 
actions  ;  but  also  in  a  great  degree  with  a  control  over  his  emo- 
tions, these  powerful  impellents  to  action — and  it  required  an 
exquisite  fitting  of  the  intellectual  to  the  moral  in  man's  mental 
system,  ere  such  a  mechanism  could  be  framed.  But  we  not 
only  behold  in  the  relation  between  the  will  and  the  emotions,  a 

*  A  strict  confinement  to  our  assigned  objects  has  hitherto  prevented  any  allusion 
lo  Christianity,  from  which  indeed  we  purposely  abstain,  till  we  approach  more  nearly 
towards  the  conclusion  of  this  essay.  Still  we  may  here  remark  how  strikingly  accor- 
dant the  philosophy  of  our  nature  is  with  the  lessons  of  the  Gospel  in  regard  to  the 
reciprocal  acting  of  its  mora!  and  intellectual  parts  on  each  other — and  tliat  not  merely 
in  what  Scripture  enjoins  on  the  management  of  temptations  ;  but  in  its  frequent 
affirmation,  as  a  general  and  reigning  principle  of  the  power  which  its  objective 
doctrines  have  in  transforming  the  subjective  mind  which  receives  them — exemplified 
in  such  phrases,  as  "  being  sanctified  by  the  truth,"  and  "  keeping  our  hearts  in  the 
love  of  God,  by  building  ourselves  nj)  on  our  most  holy  faith." 


INTELLECT    AND    THE    WILL.  281 

skilful  adaptation  in  the  parts  of  the  human  constitution  to  each 
other  ;  we  also  behold  a  general  and  manifold  adaptation  to  this 
peculiarity  in  the  various  objects  of  external  nature.  Man  can, 
by  means  of  these  objects,  either  kindle  the  right  emotions  in 
his  bosom,  or  make  his  escape  from  those  emotions  that  trouble 
and  annoy  him.  By  an  entry  into  an  abode  of  destitution,  he 
can  effectually  soften  his  heart ;  by  an  entry  into  an  abode  of 
still  deeper  suffering,  where  are  to  be  found  the  dead  or  the 
dying,  he  can  effectually  solemnize  it.  But  a  still  more  palpa- 
ble use  of  that  indefinite  number  of  objects  wherewith  the  world 
is  so  filled  and  variegated,  is,  that  by  creating  an  incessant 
diversion  of  the  thoughts  from  such  objects  as  are  of  malignant 
influence,  it  may  rid  the  inner  man  of  the  grief,  or  the  anger,  or 
the  wayward  licentiousness  of  feeling,  which  might  otherwise 
have  lorded  over  him  ;  and  to  the  urgent  calls  of  business  or 
duty  or  amusement,  do  we  owe  such  lengthened  periods  of  ex- 
emption both  from  the  emotions  that  pain,  and  from  the  emo- 
tions that  would  vitiate  and  deprave  us. 

22.  But  there  is  another  application,  of  at  least  as  high  import- 
ance, to  which  this  peculiarity  of  our  mental  structure  is  sub- 
servient.     By  the  command  which  the  will  has  over  the  atten- 
tion, we  become  responsible,  not  only  for  our  states  of  emotion, 
but  also  in  a  great  degree  for  our  intellectual  states.      The  ima- 
gination  that  there  is  neither  moral  worth  nor  moral  delinquency 
in  the  state  of  a  man's  belief,  proceeds  on  the  voluntary  having 
had  no  share  in  the  process  which   leads   to   it.     Now  through 
the  intermedium  of  the  very  same  faculty,  the  faculty  of  atten- 
tion, the  will  stands  related  to   the  ultimate  convictions   of  the 
understanding,   precisely  as   it   stands   related  to   the  ultimate 
emotions  of  the  heart.      It  is  true  that  as  the  object  in  view  of 
the  mind  is,  so  the  motion  is. — And  it  is  as  true  that  as  the  evi- 
dence in  view  of  the  mind  is,  so  the  belief  is.     In  neither  case 
has  the  will  to  do  with  the   concluding  sequence  ;   but  in  both 
cases  it  has  equally  to  do  with  the  sequences  that  went  before  it. 
There  may  be  a  pathological  necessity  beyond  our  control,  in 
that  final  step  of  the  succession,  which  connects  the  object  that 
is  perceived  with  its   counterpart  emotion,  or  the  evidence  that 
is  perceived  with  its  counterpart  belief.      But  in  like  manner  as 
it  is  by  the  attention,  which  we   might  or  might  not  have  exer- 
cised, that  the  object  is  perceived  by  us,  so  is  it  by  the  attention, 
which  we  might  or  might  not  have  exercised,  that  the  evidence 
is  perceived  by  us.     It  is  thus   that   on  innumerable  questions, 
and  these  of  vital  importance,  both  to  the  present  well-being  and 
the  future  prospects  of  humanity,  the  moral  may  have  had  causal 
antecedency  over  the  intellectual  ;  and  the  state  of  a  man's 
24* 


282  CONNEXION    BETWEEN    THE 

creed  may  depend  on  the  prior  state  of  his  character.  We  have  al- 
ready seen  how  a  present  compassion  may  have  been  the  result  of 
a  previous  choice  ;  and  so  may  a  present  conviction  be  the  result 
of  a  previous  choice — being  in  proportion  not  to  the  evidence  pos- 
sessed by  the  subject,  but  to  the  evidence  attended  to,  and  per- 
ceived in  consequence  of  that  attention.  The  designations  of  vir- 
tuous and  vicious  are  only  applicable  to  that  which  is  voluntary  ; 
and  it  is  precisely  because,  through  the  faculty  of  attention,  the  vo- 
luntary has  had  so  much  to  do,  if  not  immediately  with  the  belief,  at 
least  with  the  investigations  which  lead  to  it — that  man  may  be 
reckoned  with  for  the  judgments  of  his  understanding,  as  well 
as  for  the  emotions  of  his  heart  or  the  actions  of  his  history. 

23.   That  man  is  not  rightfully  the  subject  of  any  moral  reck- 
oning for  his  belief,  would  appear  then,  to  be  as  monstrous  a 
heresy  in  science  as  it  is  in  theology,  as  philosophically  unsound 
as  it  is  religiously  unsound  ;   and  deriving  all  its  plausilDility  from 
the  imagination,  that  the  belief  is  in  no  way  dependent  upon  the 
will.     It  is  not  morally  incumbent  upon  man  to  see  an  object, 
which  is  placed  beyond  the  sphere  of  his  vision — nor  can  either 
a  rightful  condemnation  or  a  rightful  vengeance  be  laid  upon  him, 
because  he  has  not  perceived  it.     It  must  lie  M'ithin  that  sphere, 
else  he  is  no  more  responsible  for  not  having  reached  it  with  his 
eye  than  for  not  having  stretched  forth  his  hand  to  any  of  the  dis- 
tant bodies  in  the  firmament.     It  must  be  vvithin  range  of  his 
seeing ;   and  then  the  only  question  which  needs  to  be  resolved 
is,  what  the  will  has  to  do  with  the  seeing  of  it.     Now  to  see 
is  not  properly  an  act  of  the  will,  but  to  look  is  altogether  so ; 
and  it  is  the  dependence  of  his  looking  faculty  on  the  will,  which 
makes  man  responsible  for  what  he  sees  or  what  he  does  not  see, 
in  reference  to  all  those  objects  of  sight,  that  are  {>laced  within 
the  territory  of  sensible  vision.     And  if  there  be  but  a  looking 
faculty  in  the  mind,  man  may  be  alike  responsible  for  what  he 
believes  or  what  he  does  not  believe,  in  reference,  not  to  sensible 
objects  alone,  but  to  those  truths  which  are  placed  within  the 
territory  of  his  intellectual  or  mental  vision.      TsTow  attention  is 
even  such  a  laculty.      Man  can  turn  and  transfer  it  at  }>leasure 
from  one  to  another  topic  of  contemplation.     He  can  take  cog- 
nizance of  any  visible  thing,  in  virtue  of  the  power  which  he  has 
over  the  eye  of  his  body — a  power  not  to  alter  the  laws  of  vision, 
but  to  bring  the  organ  of  vision  within  the  operation  of  these  laws. 
And  he  can  take  cognizance  of  any  announced  truth,  in  virtue 
of  the  power  he  has  over  his  attention  which  is  his  mental  eye — 
a  power,  not  to  alter  the  laws  of  evidence,  but  to  bring  the  organ 
of  the  intellect  within  their  operation.     Attention  is  the  looking 
organ  of  the  mind — the  link  of  communication  between  man's 


INTELLECT  AND  THE  WILL.  283 

moral  and  man's  intellectuul  nature — the  messenger,  as  it  wore, 
by  wliich  the  interchange  l)etween  these  two  dei)artments  is  car- 
ried on — a  messenger  too  at  the  bidding  of  the  will,  which  saith 
to  it  at  one  time  go  and  it  goeth,  at  another  come  and  it  cometh, 
and  at  a  third  do  this  and  it  dooth  it.  It  is  thus  that  man  be- 
comes directly  responsible  for  the  conclusions  of  his  understand- 
ing— for  these  conclusions  depend  altogether,  not  on  the  evidence 
which  exists,  but  on  that  portion  of  liie  evidence  which  is  attended 
to.  He  is  not  to  be  reckoned  with,  eith<u-  for  the  lack  or  the 
sufficiency  of  the  existent  evidence  ;  but  he  might  most  justly  be 
reckoned  with,  for  the  lack  or  the  sufficiency  of  his  attention. 
It  is  not  for  him  to  create  the  light  of  day  ;  but  it  is  for  him  both  to 
open  and  to  present  his  eye  to  all  its  manifestations.  Neither  is  it  for 
him  to  fetch  down  to  earth  the  light  of  the  upper  sanctuary.  But 
if  it  be  indeed  true  that  that  light  hath  come  into  the  world,  then 
it  is  for  him  to  auide  the  eye  of  his  undcrstandinjr  towards  it. 
There  is  a  voluntary  part  for  him  to  perform  ;  and  thenceforward 
the  question  is  involved  with  most  obvious  moralities.  The  thing 
is  now  submitted  to  his  choice.  He  may  have  the  light,  if  he 
only  love  the  light ;  and  if  he  do  not,  then  are  his  love  of  dark- 
ness and  the  evil  of  his  doings,  the  unquestionable  grounds  of  his 
most  clear  and  emphatic  condemnation. 

24.  And  this  principle  is  of  force,  throughout  all  the  stages  in 
the  process  of  the  inquiry — from  the  very  first  glance  of  that  which 
is  the  subject  of  it,  to  the  full  and  finished  conviction  in  which 
the  enquiry  terminates.  At  the  commencement  of  the  process, 
we  may  see  nothing  but  the  likelihoods  of  a  subject — not  the 
conclusive  proofs,  but  only  as  yet  the  dim  and  dawning  probabi- 
lities of  the  question — nothing  which  is  imperative  upon  our 
belief,  and  yet  every  thing  which  is  imperative  upon  our  at- 
tention. There  may  be  as  great  a  moral  perversity  in  resisting 
t'lat  call,  which  the  mero semblance  of  truth  makes  upon  our  fiu- 
ther  attention — as  in  resisting  that  call,  which  the  broad  and  per- 
fect manifestation  of  it  makes  upon  our  conviction.  In  the 
practice  of  Scottish  law,  there  is  a  distinction  made  between  the 
precognition  and  the  proof — carried  into  effi3ct  in  England  by  the 
respective  functions  of  the  grand  and  petty  jury  ;  it  being  the 
olfice  of  the  former  to  find  a  true  bill,  or  to  decide  whether  the 
matter  in  question  should  be  brought  to  a  further  trial ;  and  it  be- 
ing the  office  of  the  latter  to  make  that  trial,  and  to  pronounce 
the  final  verdict  thereupon.  Now  Mhat  we  affirm  is,  that  there 
might  be  to  the  full  as  grievous  a  delinquency  in  the  former  act 
of  judgment  ar.  in  the  latter  ;  in  the  denial  of  a  further  hearing 
to  the  cause  after  the  strong  probabilities  which  have  transpired 
at  thr-  one  stage,  as  in  the  denial  of  a  fair  verdict  after  the  strong 


284  CONNEXION  BETWEEN  THE 

and  satisfactory  proofs  which  have  transpired  at  the  other.  All 
the  equities  of  rectitude  may  be  as  much  traversed  or  violated, 
at  the  initial  or  progressive  steps  of  such  an  enquiry,  as  by  the 
ultimate  judgment  which  forms  the  termination  of  it.  To  resist 
a  good  and  valid  precognition,  and  so  to  refuse  the  trial,  is  a 
moral  unfairness  of  the  very  same  kind,  with  that  resistance  of  a 
good  and  valid  proof  which  leads  to  the  utterance  of  a  false  verdict.  ~ 
He  were  an  iniquitous  judge,  who  should  internally  stifle  the  im- 
pression of  those  verities,  which  now  brightened  forth  upon  him,  at 
the  close  of  his  investigation.  But  he  also  were  an  iniquitous  judge, 
who  should  stifle  the  impression  of  those  verisimilitudes,  that  even 
but  obscurely  and  languidly  beamed  upon  him  at  the  outset. 

25.  Now,  in  all  the  processes  of  the  human  intellect,  there  is 
a  similar  gradation  silently  yet  substantially  carried  forward. 
There  is  first  an  aspect  of  probability,  which  constitutes  no  claim 
upon  our  immediate  belief,  but  which  at  least  constitutes  a  most 
rightful  claim  upon  our  attention,  a  faculty,  as  we  before  said,  at 
the  bidding  of  our  will,  and  for  the  exercise  of  which  we  are 
therefore  responsible — seeing  that  Avhenever  there  is  a  rightful 
claim  upon  our  attention,  and  the  attention  is  not  given,  it  is 
vvrongously  withheld.  But  we  know  that  the  eflect  of  this  facultv, 
is  to  brighten  every  object  of  contemplation  to  which  it  is  directed, 
gradually  to  evolve  into  greater  clearness  all  its  lineaments,  and 
lastly  to  impress  the  right  conviction  upon  the  understanding. 
In  other  words,  the  man,  on  such  an  occasion  as  this,  is  intel- 
lectually right,  but  just  because  he  is  morally  right.  He  becomes 
sound  in  faith ;  but  only  in  virtue  of  having  become  sound  in 
principle.  The  true  belief  in  which  he  ultimately  lands,  is  not 
all  at  once  forced  upon  him,  by  the  credentials  wherewith  it  was 
associated  ;  but  he  had  the  patience  and  the  candour  to  wait  the 
unrolling  of  these  credentials  ;  or  rather  he  helped  to  unrol  them 
with  his  own  hand.  He  fastened  his  n  gards  upon  some  pro- 
position which  involved  in  it  the  interests  or  the  obligations  of 
humanity  ;  because  there  sat  upon  it,  even  at  the  first,  a  certain 
creditable  aspect,  which  had  he  had  the  hardihood  to  withstand 
or  to  turn  from,  it  would  have  made  him  chargeable,  not  with  a 
mental  alone,  but  with  a  moral  perversity — not  with  the  error  that 
springs  from  a  mistaken  judgment,  but  with  the  guilt  that  springs 
from  the  violation  of  an  incumbent  duty.  Many  are  the  truths 
which  do  not  carry  an  instant  and  overpowering  evidence  along 
with  them  ;  and  which  therefore,  at  their  first  announcement,  are 
not  entitled  to  demand  admittance  for  themselves  as  the  articles 
of  a  creed.  Nevertheless  they  may  be  entitled  to  a  hearing  ;  and, 
by  the  refusal  of  that  hearing,  man  incurs,  not  the  misfortune  of 
an  involuntary  blunder,  but  the  turpitude  of  a  voluntary  crime. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

On  the  Defects  and  the  Uses  of  JVaiural  Theology. 

1.  We  behold  in  the  influence  which  the  will  has  over  the  intel- 
lectual states,  the  same  adaptations  M'hich  we  did  in  the  influence 
of  the  will  over  the  emotions.  In  the  fust  place,  it  is  well  that 
the  will  should  have  a  certain  over-ruling  power  over  the  con- 
clusions of  the  understanding — seeing  that  if  emotions  supply 
the  great  impellent  forces  ;  doctrines,  or  the  truths  which  are  be- 
lieved, supply  the  great  principles  of  action.  And  secondly, 
there  is  a  striking  adaptation,  in  this  part  of  our  constitution,  to 
the  things  and  the  objects  which  be  around  us.  For  although 
there  be  much  of  truth,  having  that  sort  of  immediate  and  resist- 
less evidence,  which  forces  itself  upon  our  convictions  whether 
we  will  or  not — there  is  also  much,  and  that  too  practically  the 
most  momentous,  of  which  we  can  only  attain  the  conviction 
and  the  knowledge,  by  a  lengthened  often  a  laborious  process 
of  enquiry.  In  like  manner  as  of  material  objects,  they  may  be 
seen  but  imperfectly  at  the  first ;  and  we  become  fully  and  mi- 
nutely acquainted  with  their  visible  properties,  only  by  a  pro- 
longed look,  which  is  a  sustained  and  voluntary  act — so,  many 
are  the  objects  of  thought,  both  the  reality  and  the  nature  of  which, 
are  but  dimly  apprehended  on  the  first  suggestion  of  them  ;  and 
of  which,  we  can  only  be  made  firmly  to  believe  and  thoroughly 
to  know,  by  means  of  a  prolonged  attention,  which  is  a  sustained 
and  voluntary  act  also.  It  is  thus  that  the  moral  state  deter- 
mhies  the  intellectual — for  it  is  by  the  exercise  of  a  strong  and 
conthiuous  will,  upholding  or  perpetuating  the  attention,  that  what 
at  the  outset  were  the  probabilities  of  a  subject  are  at  length 
brightened  into  its  proofs,  and  the  verisimilitudes  of  our  regardful 
notice  become  the  verities  of  our  confirmed  faith. 

2.  Of  all  the  subjects  to  which  the  attention  of  the  human 
mind  can  be  directed,  this  principle  admits  of  pre-eminent  appli- 
cation to  the  subject  of  theology — as  involving  in  it,  both  the 
present  duties  and  the  final  destinies  of  our  race.  In  no  other 
track  of  inquiry,  are  the  moral  and  the  intellectual  more  tho- 
roughly blended, — as  might  be  evinced  by  tracing  the  whole 
progress,  from  the  first  or  incipient  disposition  of  mind  towards 
the  theme,  to  the  devotedness  of  its  confirmed  assurance. 

3.  Going  back  then  to  the  very  earliest  of  our  mental  concep- 
tions on  this  subject,  we  advert  first  to  the  distinction  in  point 


286  ON    THE    DEFECTS    AND    USES 

of  real  and  logical  import,  between  unbelief  and  disbelief.  The 
former  we  apprehend,  to  be  the  furthest  amount  of  the  atheis- 
tical verdict  on  the  question  of  a  God.  The  atheist  does  not 
labour  to  demonstrate  that  there  is  no  God.  But  he  labours  to 
demonstrate  that  there  is  no  adequate  proof  of  there  being  one. 
He  does  not  positively  affirm  the  position,  that  God  is  not ;  but 
he  affirms  the  lack  of  evidence  for  the  position,  that  God  is.  His 
verdict  on  the  doctrine  of  a  God  is  only  that  it  is  not  proven.  It 
is  not  that  it  is  disproven.  He  is  but  an  Atheist.  He  is  not  an 
Antitheist. 

4.  Now  there  is  one  consideration,  which  affords  the  enquirer 
a  singularly  clear  and  commanding  position,  at  the  outset  of  this 
great  question.  It  is  this.  We  cannot,  without  a  glaring  con- 
travention to  all  the  principles  of  the  experimental  philosophy, 
recede  to  a  further  distance  from  the  doctrine  of  a  God,  than  to 
the  position  of  simple  atheism.  We  do  not  need  to  take  our  de- 
parture from  any  point  further  back  than  this,  in  the  region  of 
antitheism  ;  for  that  region  cannot  possibly  be  entered  by  us 
but  by  an  act  of  tremendous  presumption,  which  it  were  prema- 
ture to  denounce  as  impious,  but  which  we  have  the  authority  of 
all  modern  science  for  denouncing  as  unphilosophical.  To 
make  this  palpable,  we  have  only  to  contrast  the  two  intellec- 
tual states,  not  of  theism  and  atheism,  but  of  theism  and  antithe- 
ism— along  with  the  two  processes,  by  which  alone,  w-e  can  be 
logically  and  legitimately  led  to  them. 

5.  To  be  able  to  say  then  that  there  is  a  God,  we  may  have 
only  to  look  abroad  on  some  definite  territory,  and  point  to  the 
vestiges  that  are  given  of  His  power  and  His  presence  some- 
where. To  be  able  to  say  that  there  is  no  God,  we  must  walk 
the  whole  expanse  of  infinity,  and  ascertain  by  observation,  that 
such  vestiges  are  to  be  found  nowhere.  Grant  that  no  trace  of 
Him  can  be  discerned  in  that  quarter  of  contemplation,  which 
our  puny  optics  have  explored — does  it  follow,  that,  throughout 
all  immensity,  a  Being  with  the  essence  and  sovereignty  of  a 
God  is  nowhere  to  be. found?  Because  through  our  loopholes 
of  communication  with  that  small  portion  of  external  nature 
which  is  before  us,  we  have  not  seen  or  ascertained  a  God — 
nmst  we  therefore  conclude  of  every  unknown  and  untrodden 
vastness  in  this  illimitable  universe,  that  no  diversity  is  there. 
Or  because,  through  the  brief  successions  of  our  little  day,  these 
heavens  have  not  once  broken  silence,  is  it  therefore  for  us  to 
speak  to  all  the  periods  of  that  eternity  which  is  behind  us  ;  and 
to  say,  that  never  hath  a  God  come  forth  with  the  unequivocal 
tokens  of  His  existence  ?  Ere  we  can  say  that  there  is  a  God — 
we  must  have  seen,  on  that  portion  of  Nature  to  which  we  have 


OF    NATURAL    THEOLOGY.  287 

access,  the  print  of  His  footsteps,  or  have  had  direct  intimation 
from  Himself;   or  been  satisfied  by  the  authentic  memorials  of 
His  converse  with  our  species  in  other  days.   But  ere  we  can  say 
that  there  is  no  God — we  must  have  roamed  over  all  nature,  and 
seen  that  no  mark  of  a  Divine  footstep  was  there  ;  and  we  must 
have  gotten  intimacy  with  every  existent  spirit  in  the  universe, 
and  learned  from  each,  that  never  did  a  revelation  of  the  Deity 
visit  him ;  and  we  must  have  searched,  not  into  the  records  of 
one  solitary  planet,  but  into  the  archives  of  all  worlds,  and  thence 
gathered,  that,  throughout  the  wide  realms  of  immensity,  not  one 
exhibition  of  a  reigning  and  living  God  ever  has  been  made. 
Atheism  might  plead  a  lack  of  evidence  within  its  own  field  of 
observation.     But  antitheism  pronounces  both  upon  the  things 
which  are,  and  the  things  which  are  not  within  that  field.     It 
breaks  forth  and  beyond  all  those  limits,  that  have  been  pre- 
scribed to  man's  excursive  spirit,  by  the  sound  philosophy  of 
experience  ;  and  by  a  presumption  the  most  tremendous,  even 
the  usurpation  of  all  space  and  of  all  time,  it  affirms  that  there  is 
no  God.     To  make  this  out,  we  should  need  to  travel  abroad 
over  the  surrounding  universe  till  we  had  exhausted  it,  and  to 
search  backward  through  all  the  hidden  recesses  of  eternity  ;  to 
traverse  in  every  direction  the  plains  of  infinitude,  and  sweep  the 
outskirts  of  that  space  which  is  itself  interminable ;    and  then 
bring  back  to  this  little  world  of  ours,  the  report  of  a  universal 
blank,  wherein  we  had  not  met  with  one  manifestation  or  one 
movement  of  a  presiding  God.     For  man  not  to  know  of  a  God, 
he  has  only  to  sink  beneath  the  level  of  our  common  nature. 
But  to  deny  him,  he  must  be  a  God  himself.     He  must  arrogate 
the  ubiquity  and  omniscience  of  the  Godhead.* 

6.   It  affords  a  firm  outset  to  this  investigation,  that  we  cannot 
recede  a  greater  way  from  the  doctrine  to  be  investigated,  than 

*  This  idea  has  been  powerfully  rendered  by  Foster  in  the  following  passage  ex- 
tracted from  one  of  his  essays. — 

"  The  wonder  turns  on  the  great  process,  by  which  a  man  could  grow  to  the  im- . 
mense  intelligence  that  can  know  there  is  no  God.  What  ages  and  what  lights  are 
requisite  for  this  attainment  ?  This  intelligence  involves  the  very  attributes  of  Divi- 
nity, while  a  God  is  denied.  For  unless  this  man  is  omnipresent,  unless  he  is  at  this 
moment  in  every  place  in  the  Universe,  he  cannot  know  but  there  may  be  in  some 
place  manifestations  of  a  Deity  by  which  even  he  would  be  overpowered.  If  he  does 
not  absolutely  know  every  agent  in  the  Universe,  tlie  one  that  he  does  not  know  may 
be  God.  If  he  is  not  himself  the  chief  a^ent  in  the  Universe,  and  does  not  know  what 
is  so,  that  which  is  so  may  be  God.  If  he  is  not  in  absolute  possession  of  all  the  pro- 
positions that  constitute  universal  truth,  the  one  which  he  wants  may  be  that  there  is  a 
God.  If  he  cannot  with  certainty  assign  the  cause  of  all  that  he  perceives  to  exist,  that 
caa:e  may  be  a  God.  If  he  does  not  know  every  \Ku\g  that  has  been  done  in  the  im- 
measurable ages  that  are  past,  some  things  may  have  been  done  by  a  God.  Thus 
unless  he  knows  all  things,  that  is,  precludes  anotlier  Deity  by  being  one  himself,  he 
cannot  know  that  the  Being  whose  existence  he  rejects,  does  not  exist. 


288  ON    THE    DEFECTS    AND    USES      ' 

to  the  simple  point  of  ignorance  or  unbelief.  We  cannot,  with- 
out making  inroad  on  the  soundest  principles  of  evidence,  move 
one  ste})  back  from  this,  to  the  region  of  disbelief.  We  can 
figure  an  inquirer  taking  up  his  position  in  midway  atheism. 
But  he  cannot,  without  defiance  to  the  whole  principle  and  phi- 
losophy of  evidence,  make  aggression  thence  on  the  side  of  anti- 
theism.  There  is  a  clear  intellectual  principle,  which  forbids  his 
proceeding  in  that  direction  ;  and  there  is  another  principle 
equally  clear,  though  not  an  intellectual  but  a  moral  one,  which 
urges  him,  if  not  to  move,  at  least  to  look  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion. We  are  not  asking  him,  situated  where  he  is,  to  beheve  in 
God.  For  the  time  being,  we  as  little  expect  d  friendly  as  we 
desire  a  hostile  decision  upon  the  question.  Our  only  demand 
for  the  present  is,  that  he  shall  entertain  the  question.  And  to 
enforce  the  demand,  we  think  that  an  effective  appeal  mi2;ht  be 
made  to  his  own  moral  nature.  We  suppose  him  still  to  be  an 
atheist,  but  no  more  than  an  atheist — for,  in  all  right  Baconian 
logic,  the  very  farthest  remove  from  theism,  at  which  he  or  any 
man  can  be  placed  by  the  lack  of  evidence  for  a  God,  is  at  the 
point  of  simple  neutrality.  We  might  well  assume  this  point,  as 
the  utmost  possible  extreme  of  alienation  from  the  doctrine  of  a 
Creator,  to  which  the  mind  of  a  creature  can  in  any  circum- 
stances be  legitimately  carried.  We  cannot  move  from  it,  in  the 
direction  towards  antitheism,  without  violence  to  all  that  is  just 
in  philosophy ;  and  we  might  therefore  commence  with  enquir- 
ing, v/hether,  in  this  lowest  state  of  information  and  proof  upon 
the  question,  there  can  be  any  thing  assigned,  which  should  lead 
us  to  move,  or  at  least  to  look  in  the  opposite  direction. 

7.  In  the  utter  destitution,  for  the  present,  of  any  argument, 
or  even  semblance  of  argument,  that  a  God  is — there  is,  per- 
haps, a  certain  duteous  movement  which  the  mind  ought  to  take, 
on  the  bare  suggestion  that  a  God  may  be.  The  certainty  of 
an  actual  God  binds  over  to  certain  distinct  and  most  undoubted 
proprieties.  But  so  also  may  the  imagination  of  a  possible  God 
— in  which  case,  the  very  idea  of  a  God,  even  in  its  most  hypo- 
thetical form,  might  lay  a  responsibility,  even  upon  atheists. 

S.  To  make  this  palpable,  we  might  imagine  a  family  suffer- 
iiig  under  extreme  destitution,  and  translated  all  at  once  into  suf- 
ficiency or  affluence  by  an  anonymous  donation.  Had  the  be- 
nefactor been  known,  the  gratitude  that  were  due  to  him  becomes 
abundantly  obvious  ;  and  in  the  estimation  of  every  conscience, 
nothing  could  exceed  the  turpitude  of  him,  who  should  regale 
himself  on  the  bounties  wherewith  he  had  been  enriched,  and  yet 
pass  unheedingly  by  the  giver  of  them  all.  Yet  does  not  a  pro- 
portion of  this  very  guilt  rest  upon  him,  who  knows  not  the  hand 


OP    NATURAL    THEOLOGY.  289 

that  relieved  him,  yet  cares  not  to  enquire  ?     It  does  not  exone- 
rate him  from  the  burthen  ot'  all  obligation  that  he  knows  not  the 
hand  which  sustains  him.     He  incurs  a  guilt,  it"  he  do  not  want 
to  know.     It  is  enough  to  convict  him  of  a  great  moral  delin- 
quency, if  he  have  gladly  seized  upon  the  liberalities  which  were 
brought  in  secret  to  his  door,  yet  seeks  not  after  the  quarter 
whence  they  have  come — willing  that  the  hand  of  the  dispenser 
should  remain  for  ever  unknown,  and  not  wanting  any  such  dis- 
closures as  would  lay  a  distinct  claim  or  obligation  upon  himself. 
He  altogether  lives  by  the  bounty  of  another ;  yet  would  rather 
continue  to  live  without  the  burthen  of  those  services  or  acknow- 
ledgments that  arc  due  to  him.     His  ignorance  of  the  benefactor 
might  alleviate  the  charge  of  ingratitude  ;  but  it  plainly  awakens 
the  charge  again,  if  he  choose  to  remain  in  ignorance,  and  would 
shun  the  information  that  might  dispel  it.     In  reference  then  to 
this  still  undiscovered  patron  of  his  family,  it  is  possible  for  him 
to  evince  ingratitude  ;  to  make  full  exhibition  of  a  nature  that  is 
unmoved  by  kindness  and  withholds  the  moral  responses  which 
are  duo  to  it,  that  can  riot  with  utmost  seltishness  and  satisfac- 
tion upon  the  gifts  while  in  total  indifierence  about  the  giver — 
an  inditference  which  might  be  quite  as  clearly  and  character- 
istically shown,  by  the  man  who  seeks  not  after  his  unknown 
friend,  as  by  the  man  who  slights  him  after  that  he  has  found  him. 
9.   It  may  thus  be  made  to  appear,  that  there  is  an  ethics  con- 
nected with  theology,  which  may  come  into  play,  anterior  to  the 
clear  view  of  any  of  its  objects.     More  especially,  we  do  not 
need  to  be  sure  of  God,  ere  we  ought  to  have  certain  feelings, 
or  at  least  certain  aspirations  towards  him.     For  this  purpose 
we  do  not  need,  fully  and  absolutely  to  believe  that  God  is.     It 
is  enough  that  our  minds  cannot  fully  and  absolutely  acquisesce 
m  the  position  that  God  is  not.     To  be  fit  subjects  lor  our  pre- 
sent argument,  we  do  not  need  to  have  explored  that  territory 
of  nature  which  is  within  our  reach  ;  and  thence  gathered,  in  the 
traces  of  a  designer's  hand  the  positive  conclusion  that  there  is 
a  God.     It  is  enough  if  we  have  not  traversed,  thi'oughout  all  its 
directions  and  in  all  its  extent,  the  sphere  of  immensity  ;   and  if 
we  have  not  scaled  the  mysterious  altitudes  of  the  eternity  that 
is  past ;  nor,  after  having  there  searched  for  a  divmity  in  vain, 
have  come  at  length  to  the  positive  and  the  peremptory  conclu- 
sion, that  there  is  not  a  God.     In  a  word,  it  is   quite  enough, 
that  man  is  barely  a  finite  creature,  who  has  not  yet  put  forth 
his  faculties  on  the  question  whether  God  is  ;  neither  has  yet  so 
ranged  over  all  space  and  all  time,  as  definitely  to  have  ascer- 
tained that  God  is  not — but  with  whom  though  in  ignorance  of 
all  proofs,  it  still  remains  a  possibility  that  God  may  be. 
25 


290  ON    THE    DEFECTS    AND    USES 

10.  Now  to  this  condition,  there  attaches  a  most  clear  and  in- 
cumbent morahty.     It  is  to  go  in  quest  of  that  unseen  benefactor, 
who,  for  aught  I  know,  has   ushered  me  into  existence,   and 
spread  so  glorious  a  panorama  around  me.     It  is  to  probe  the 
secret  of  my  being  and  my  birth  ;  and,  if  possible,  to  make  dis- 
covery whether  it  was  indeed  the  hand  of  a  benefactor,   that 
brought  me  forth  from  the  chambers  of  nonentity,  and  gave  me 
place  and  entertainment  in  that  glowing  territory,  which  is  lighted 
up  with  the  hopes  and  the  happiness  of  living  men.     It  is  thus 
that  the  very  conception  of  a  God  throws  a  responsibility  after 
it ;  and  that  duty,  solemn  and  imperative  duty,  stands  associated 
with  the  thought  of  a  possible  deity,  as  well  as  with  the  sight  of 
a  present  deity,  standing  in  full  manifestation  before  us.     Even 
anterior  to  all  knowledge  of  God,  or  when  that  knowledge  is  in 
embryo,  there  is  both  a  path  of  irreligion  and  a  path  of  piety ; 
and  that  law  which  denounces  the  one  and  gives  to  the  other  an 
approving  testimony,  may  find  in  him  who  is  still  in  utter  dark- 
ness about  his  origin  and  his  end,  a  fit  subject  for  the  retribu- 
tions which  she  deals  in.     He  cannot  be  said  to  have  borne  dis- 
regard to  the  will  of  that  God,  whom  he  has  found.     But  his  is 
the  guilt  of  impiety,  in  that  he  has  borne  disregard  to  the  know- 
ledge of  that  God,  whom  he  was  bound  by  every  tie  of  gratitude 
to  seek  after — a  duty  not  founded  on  the  proofs  that  may  be  ex- 
hibited for  the  being  of  a  God,  but  a  duty  to  which  even  the  most 
slight  and  slender  of  presumptions  should  give  rise.     And  who 
can  deny  that,  antecedent  to  all  close  and  careful  examination 
of  the  proofs,  there  are  at  least  many  presumptions  in  behalf  of 
a  God,  to  meet  the  eye  of  every  observer  ?     Is  there  any  so 
hardy  as  to  deny,  that  the  curious  workmanship  of  his  frame  may 
have  had  a  designer  and  an  architect,  that  the  ten  thousand  in- 
dependent circumstances  which  must  be  united  ere  he  can  have 
a  moment's  ease,  and  the  failure  of  any  one  of  which  would  be 
agony,  may  not  have  met  at  random,  but  that  there  may  be  a 
skilful  and  unseen  hand  to  have  put  them  together  into  one 
wondrous  concurrence,  and  that  never  ceases  to  uphold  it ;  that 
there  may  be  a  real  and  living  artist,  whose  fingers  did  frame 
the  economy  of  actual  things,  and  who  hath  so  marvellously 
suited  all  that  is  around  us  to  our  senses  and  our  powers  of  gra- 
tification?    Without  affirming  aught  which  is  positive,  surely 
the  air  that  we  breathe,  and  the  beautiful  light  in  which  we  ex- 
patiate, these  elements  of  sight  and  sound  so  exquisitely  fitted 
to  the  organs  of  the  human  frame-work,  may  have  been  provided 
by  one  who  did  benevolently  consult  in  them  our  special  accom- 
modation.    The  graces  innumerable  that  lie  widely  spread  over 
the  face  of  our  world,  the  glorious  concave  of  heaven  that  is 


OF    NATURAL    THEOLOGY.  291 

placed  over  iis,  the  grateful  variety  of  seasons  that  like  Nature's 
shifting  panorama  ever  brings  new  entertainment  and  delight  to 
the  eye  of  spectators — these  may,  for  aught  \vc  know,  be  the 
emanations  of  a  creative  mind,  that  originated  our  family  and 
devised  such  a  universe  for  their  habitation.  Regarding  these, 
not  as  proofs,  but  in  the  humble  light  of  presumptions  for  a 
God,  they  are  truly  enough  to  convict  us  of  foulest  ingrati- 
tude— if  we  go  not  forth  in  quest  of  a  yet  unknown,  but  at  least 
possible  or  likely  benefactor.  They  may  not  resolve  the  ques- 
tion of  a  God.  But  they  bring  the  heaviest  reproach  on  our 
listlessness  to  the  question  ;  and  show  that,  anterior  to  our 
assured  belief  in  his  existence,  there  lies  upon  us  a  most  im- 
perious obligation  to  '  stir  ourselves  up  that  we  may  lay  hold  of 
Him.' 

11.  Such  presumptions  as  these,  if  not  so  many  demands  on 
the  belief  of  man,  are  at  least  so  many  demands  upon  his  atten- 
tion ;  and  then,  for  aught  he  knows,  the  presumptions  on  which 
he  ought  to  enquire  may  be  more  and  more  enhanced,  till  they 
brighten  into  proofs  which  ought  to  convince  him.  The  prima- 
facie  evidence  for  a  God  may  not  be  enough  to  decide  the  ques- 
tion ;  but  it  should  at  least  decide  man  to  entertain  the  question. 
To  think  upon  how  slight  a  variation  either  in  man  or  in  exter- 
nal nature,  the  whole  difference  between  physical  enjoyment  and 
the  most  acute  and  most  appalling  of  physical  agony  may  turn ; 
to  think  how  delicate  the  balance  is,  and  yet  how  surely  and 
steadfastly  it  is  maintained,  so  as  that  the  vast  majority  of  crea- 
tures are  not  only  upheld  in  comfort,  but  often  may  be  seen  dis- 
porting themselves  in  the  redundance  of  gaiety ;  to  think  of  the 
j)leasurable  sensations  wherewith  every  hour  is  enlivened,  and 
how  much  the  most  frequent  and  familiar  occasions  of  life  are 
mixed  up  with  happiness  ;  to  think  of  the  food,  and  the  recrea- 
tion, and  the  study,  and  the  society,  and  the  business,  each  hav- 
ing an  ap})ropriatc  relish  of  its  own,  so  as  in  fact  to  season  with 
enjoyment  the  great  bulk  of  our  existence  in  the  world  ;  to 
think  that,  instead  of  living  in  the  midst  of  grievous  and  inces- 
sant annoyance  to  all  our  faculties,  we  should  have  awoke  upon 
a  world  that  so  harmonized  with  the  various  senses  of  man,  and 
both  gave  forth  such  music  to  his  car  and  to  his  eye  such  mani- 
fold loveliness  ;  to  think  of  all  these  palpable  and  most  precious 
adaptations — and  yet  to  care  not,  whether  in  this  wide  universe 
there  exists  a  being  who  has  had  any  hand  in  them — to  riot  and 
regale  oneself  to  the  uttermost  in  the  midst  of  all  this  profusion — 
and  yet  to  send  not  one  wishful  inquiry  after  that  Benevolence 
which  for  aught  we  know  may  have  laid  it  at  our  feet — this,  how- 
ever shaded  from  our  view  the  object  of  the  question  may  be,  is, 


292  ON    THE    DEFECTS    AND    USES 

from  its  very  commencement,  a  clear  outrage  against  its  ethical 
proprieties.  If  that  veil  of  dim  transparency,  which  hides  the 
Deity  from  our  immediate  perceptions,  were  lifted  up  ;  and  we 
should  then  spurn  from  us  the  manifested  God — this  were  direct 
and  glaring  impiety.  But  anterior  to  the  lifting  of  that  veil, 
there  may  be  impiety.  It  is  impiety  to  be  so  immersed  as  we 
are,  in  the  busy  objects  and  gratifications  of  life ;  and  yet  to 
care  not  whether  there  be  a  gi-eat  and  a  good  spirit  by  whose 
kindness  it  is  that  life  is  upholden.  It  needs  not  that  this  spirit 
should  reveal  himself  in  characters  that  force  our  attention  to 
him,  ere  the  guilt  of  our  impiety  has  begun.  But  ours  is  the 
guilt  of  impiety,  in  not  lifting  our  attention  towards  God,  in  not 
seeking  after  Him  if  haply  we  may  find  him. 

12.  Man  is  not  to  blame,  if  an  atheist,  because  of  the  want  of 
proof.  But  he  is  to  blame,  if  an  atheist,  because  he  has  shut 
his  eyes.  He  is  not  to  blame,  that  the  evidence  for  a  God  has 
not  been  seen  by  him,  if  no  such  evidence  there  v.erc  within 
the  field  of  his  observation.  But  he  is  to  blame,  il'  the  evidence 
have  not  been  seen,  because  he  turned  away  his  attention  from 
it.  That  the  question  of  a  God  may  lie  unresolved  in  his  mind, 
all  he  has  to  do,  is  to  refuse  a  hearing  to  the  question.  He 
may  abide  without  the  conviction  of  a  God,  if  he  so  choose.  But 
this  his  choice  is  matter  of  condemnation.  To  resist  God  after 
that  He  is  known,  is  criminality  towards  Him  ;  but  to  be  satis- 
fied that  He  should  remain  unknown,  is  like  criminality  towards 
Him.  There  is  a  moral  perversity  of  spirit  vrith  him  who  is  will- 
ing, in  the  midst  of  many  objects  of  gratification,  that  there 
should  not  be  one  object  of  gratitude.  It  is  thus  that,  even  in 
the  ignorance  of  God,  there  may  be  a  responsibility  towards 
God.  The  Discerner  of  the  heart  sees,  whether,  for  the  bless- 
ings innumerable  wherewith  He  has  strewed  the  path  of  every 
man.  He  be  treated,  like  the  unknoAvii  benefactor  who  was  di- 
ligently sought,  or  like  the  unknown  benefactor  who  was  never 
cared  for.  In  respect,  at  least  of  desire  after  God,  the  same 
distinction  of  character  may  be  observed  between  one  man  and 
another — whether  God  be  wrapt  in  mystery,  or  stand  forth  in 
full  developement  to  our  Avorld.  Even  though  a  mantle  of  deep- 
est obscurity  lay  over  the  question  of  His  existence  ;  this  would 
not  efface  the  distinction,  between  the  piety  on  the  one  hand 
which  laboured  and  aspired  after  Him  ;  and  the  impiety  upon 
the  other  which  never  missed  the  evidence  that  it  did  not  care 
for,  and  so  grovelled  in  the  midst  of  its  own  sensuality  and  sel- 
fishness. The  eye  of  a  heavenly  witness  is  upon  all  these 
varieties  ;  and  thus,  whether  it  be  darkness  or  whether  it  be  dis- 
like which  hath  caused  a  people  to  be  ignorant  of  God,  there  is 


OF    NATURAL    THEOLOGY.  293 

with  him  a  clear  principle  of  judgment,  that  He  can  extend  even 
to  the  outlields  of  atheism. 

13.  It  would  ai)pear  then,  that,  even  in  the  initial  state  of  the 
lumian  mind  on  the  tjuestion  of  a  God,  there  is  an  impellent 
force  upon  the  conscience,  which  man  ought  to  ohey,  and  which 
he  incurs  guilt  by  resisting.  We  do  not  speak  of  that  light 
which  irradiates  the  termination  of  the  inquirer's  path,  but  of 
that  embryo  or  rudimental  light  which  glimmers  over  the  outset 
of  it ;  which  serves  at  least  to  indicate  the  commencement  of 
his  way ;  and  which,  for  aught  lie  knows,  may  brighten,  as  he 
advances  onwards,  to  the  blaze  of  a  full  and  iinished  revelation. 
At  no  point  of  this  progress,  does  '  the  trumpet  give  an  uncer- 
tain sound,'  extending,  if  not  to  those  who  stand  on  the  ground 
of  Antitheism,  (which  we  have  edready  pronounced  upon  and 
we  trust  proved  to  be  madly  irrational) — at  least  to  those  who 
stand  on  the  ground  of  Atheism,  who,  though  strangers  to  the 
conviction,  are  certainly  not  strangers  to  the  conception  of  a 
Deity.  It  is  of  the  utmost  practical  importance,  that  even  these 
arc  not  beyond  the  jiuisdiction  of  an  obvious  principle  ;  and 
that  a  right  obligatory  call  can  be  addressed  to  men  so  far  back 
on  the  domain  of  irreligion  and  ignorance.  It  is  deeply  inte- 
resting to  know,  by  what  sort  of  moral  force,  even  an  atheist 
ought  to  be  evoked  from  the  fastness  which  he  occupies — what 
are  the  notices,  by  responding  to  which,  he  should  come  forth 
with  open  eyes  and  a  willing  mind  to  this  high  investigation ; 
and  by  resisting  which,  he  will  incur  a  demerit,  whereof  a  clear 
moral  cognizance  might  be  tidcen,  and  whereon  a  righteous 
moral  condemnation  might  be  passed.  The  "  fishers  of  men" 
should  know  the  uttermost  reach  of  their  argument ;  and  it  is 
well  to  understand  of  religion,  that,  if  she  have  truth  and  au- 
thority at  all,  there  is  a  voice  proceeding  from  her  which  might 
be  universally  heard — so  that  even  the  remotest  families  of 
eardi,  if  not  reclaimed  by  her,  aie  laid  by  her  under  sentence 
of  righteous  reprobation. 

14.  On  this  doctrine  of  the  moral  dynamics,  which  operate 
and  are  in  force,  even  in  our  state  of  profoundest  ignorance  re- 
specting God,  there  may  be  grounded  three  important  appli- 
cations. 

15.  The  first  is  that  all  men,  under  all  the  [)OSsible  varieties 
of  illumination,  may  nevertheless  be  the  fit  subjects  for  a  judicial 
cognizance.  Their  theology,  seen  through  the  hazy  medium  of 
a  dull  and  imperfect  evidence,  may  have  arisen  no  higher  than  to 
the  passing  suggestion  of  a  God — a  mere  surmise  or  rumination 
about  an  unseen  spirit,  who  tending  all  their  footsteps,  was  their 
guaidian  and  their  guide  through  the  dangers  of  the  pathless  wil- 

25* 


294  ON    THE    DEFECTS    AND    USES 

derness.  Now  in  this  thought,  fugitive  though  it  be,  in  these  un- 
certain ghmpsGS  whether  of  a  truth  or  of  a  possibility,  there  is 
that,  to  which  the  elements  of  their  moral  nature  might  rcsjioiid — 
so  that  to  them,  there  is  not  the  same  exemption  Irom  all  respon- 
sibility, which  will  be  granted  to  the  man  who  is  sunk  in  hoj>eIess 
idiotism,  or  to  the  infant  of  a  day  old.  Even  with  the  scanty 
materials  of  a  heathen  creed,  a  pure  or  a  perverse  morality  might 
be  grounded  thereupon — whether,  in  those  longings  of  a  vague 
and  undefined  earnestness  that  arise  from  him  who  feels  in  his 
bosom  an  affinity  for  God  and  godliness  ;  or,  in  the  heedlessness 
of  him,  who,  careless  of  an  unknown  benefactor,  v.ouldhave  been 
alike  careless,  although  he  had  stood  revealed  to  his  gaze,  with 
as  much  light  and  evidence  as  is  to  be  had  in  Christendom. 
These  differences  attest  what  man  is,  under  the  dark  economy 
of  Paganism  ;  and  so  give  token  to  what  he  v/ould  be,  under 
the  bright  economy  of  a  fiill  and  finished  revelation.  It  is  thus 
that  the  Searcher  of  the  heart  will  find  out  data  for  a  reckoning, 
oven  among  the  rudest  of  nature's  children,  or  among  those 
whose  spiritual  light  glimmers  most  feebly.  Even  the  simple 
theology  of  the  desert  can  sup[)ly  the  materials  of  a  coming 
judgment — so  that  the  Discerner  of  the  inner  man  will  be  at  no 
loss  for  a  principle,  on  which  He  might  clearly  and  righteously 
try  all  the  men  of  till  the  generations  that  be  upon  the  face  of  the 
earth. 

16.  The  second  important  bearing  of  this  princi})le  is  on  the 
subject  of  religious  education.  For  what  is  true  of  a  savage  is 
true  of  a  child.  Its  moral  may  outrun  its  argumentative  light. 
Long  anterior  to  the  possibility  of  any  soimd  conviction  as  to  the 
character  or  existence  of  a  God,  it  may  respond  with  sound  and 
correct  feeling  to  the  mere  conception  of  Him.  We  hold,  that, 
on  this  principle,  the  practice  of  early,  nay  even  of  infantine  re- 
ligious education,  may,  in  o})position  to  the  invectives  of  Rous- 
seau and  others,  be  fully  and  philosophically  vindicated.  For 
the  effect  of  this  anticipative  process  is,  that,  though  it  do 
not  at  once  enlighten  the  mind  on  the  question  of  a  God,  it  at 
least  awakens  to  the  question.  It  does  not  consummate  the  pro- 
cess ;  but,  in  as  far  as  the  moral  precedes  the  intellectual,  it 
makes  good  the  preliminary  steps  of  the  process — insomuch 
that,  in  every  Christian  land,  the  youth  and  the  manhood  are  ac- 
coimtable  for  their  belief,  because  accountable  for  their  use  or 
their  neglect  of  that  enquiry,  by  which  the  belief  ought  to  have 
been  determined.  They  have  all  from  their  infancy  heard  of 
God.  Many  have  been  trained  to  think  of  Him,  amidst  a  thou- 
sand associations  of  reverence.  Some,  under  a  roof  of  piety, 
have  often  lisped  the  prayers  of  early  childhood   to  this  unseen 


OF    NATURAL    THEOLOGY.  295 

Being  ;  and,  in  the  often  repeated  sound  of  nioining  and  even- 
ing orisons,  they  have  become  familiar  to  His  name.  Even  thev 
who  have  grown  nj)  at  random  through  the  years  of  a  neglected 
boyhood,  are  greatly  within  the  limits  of  that  respon-sibility  for 
which  we  plead.  They  arc  fully  possessed  if  not  with  the  certainty, 
at  least  with  the  idea,  of  a  great  eternal  Sovereign.  The  veiv- 
imprecations  of  profancness  may  have  taught  it  to  them.  The 
very  Sabbath  they  spend  in  riot  and  blasphemy  at  least  remind 
them  of  a  God.  The  worship-bell  of  the  chiu-ch  they  never  en- 
ter, conveys  to  them,  if  not  the  truth,  at  least  an  imagination  of 
the  truth,  which,  if  it  do  not  arrest  them  by  a  sense  of  obligation, 
will  leave  guilt  upon  their  souls — though  it  be  guilt  against  a  God 
who  is  unknown. 

17.  But  lastly,  we  may  now  perceive  what  that  is,  on  which 
a  teacher  of  religion  finds  an  introduction  for  his  topic,  even  into 
the  minds  of  the  people  in  the  lowest  state  both  of  moral  and 
intellectual  debasement.  They  may  have  not  that  in  them,  at 
(he  outset  of  his  ministrations,  which  can  enable  them  to  decide 
tlie  question  of  a  God  ;  but  they  have  at  least  that  in  them, 
which  should  summon  all  their  faculties  to  the  respectful  enter- 
tainment of  it.  They  have  at  least  such  a  sense  of  the  divinity, 
as  their  own  consciences  will  tell,  should  put  them  on  the  regards 
and  the  enquiries  of  moral  earnestness.  This  is  a  clear  prin- 
ciple which  operates  at-  the  very  commencement  of  a  religious 
course  ;  and  causes  the  first  transition,  from  the  darkness  and 
insensibility  of  ahenated  nature,  to  the  feelings  and  attentions  of 
seriousness.  The  truth  is,  that  there  is  a  certain  rudimental 
theology  every  where,  on  which  the  lessons  of  a  higher  theoloev 
may  be  grafted — as  much  as  to  condemn,  if  not  to  awaken  the 
apathy  of  nature.  What  we  have  already  said  of  the  relation  in 
which  the  father  of  a  starving  household  stands  to  the  giver  of  an 
anonvmous  donation,  holds  true  of  the  relation  in  which  all  men 
stand  to  the  unseen  or  anonymous  God.  Though  in  a  state  of 
absolute  darkness,  and  without  one  token  or  clue  to  a  discovery, 
there  is  room  for  the  exhibition  of  moral  differences  among  men — 
for  even  then,  all  the  elements  of  morality  might  be  at  work,  and 
all  the  tests  of  moral  propriety  might  be  abundantly  verified  ; 
and  still  more,  after  that  certain  likelihoods  had  arisen,  or  some 
hopeful  opening  had  occurred  for  investigating  the  secret  of  a 
God.  There  is  the  utmost  moral  difference  that  can  be  ima- 
gined between  the  man  who  would  gaze  with  intense  scrutiny 
upon  these  likelihoods,  and  the  man  who  either  in  heedlessness  or 
aversion  would  turn  his  eyes  from  them  ;  between  the  man  who 
would  seize  upon  such  an  opening  and  prosecute  such  an  inves- 
tigation to  the   uttermost,  and  the   man   who    either   retires  or 


'- V-i, 


296  ON    THE    DEFECTS    AND    USES 

shrinks  from  the  opportunity  of  a  disclosure  that  might  burthen 
him  both  with  the  sense  and  with  the  services  of  some  mighty 
obligation. 

18.  And  the  same  moral  force  which  begins  this  enquiry,  also 
continues  and  sustains  it.  If  there  be  power  in  the  very  conception 
of  a  God  to  create  and  constitute  the  duty  of  seeking  after  Him, 
this  power  grows  and  gathers  with  every  footstep  of  advance- 
ment in  the  high  investigation.  If  the  thought  of  a  merely  pos- 
sible Deity  have  rightfully  awakened  a  sense  of  obligation  within 
us  to  entertain  the  question ;  the  view  of  a  probable  Deity  must 
enhance  this  feeling,  and  make  the  claim  upon  our  attention  still 
more  urgent  and  imperative  than  at  the  first.  Every  new  likeli- 
hood makes  the  call  louder,  and  the  challenge  more  incumbently 
binding  than  before.  In  proportion  to  the  light  we  had  attained, 
would  be  the  criminality  of  resisting  any  further  notices  or  ma- 
nifestations of  that  mighty  Being  with  whom  we  had  so  nearly 
and  so  emphatically  to  do.  Under  the  impulse  of  a  right  principle, 
we  should  follow  on  to  know  God — till,  after  having  done  full 
justice  both  to  our  opportunities  and  our  powers,  we  had  made 
the  most  of  all  the  available  evidence  that  was  within  our  reach, 
and  possessed  ourselves  of  all  the  knowledge  that  wao  accessible. 

19.  We  can  conceive,  how,  under  the  influence  of  these  con- 
siderations, one  should  begin  and  prosecute  the  study  of  Natural 
Theology,  till  he  had  exhausted  it.  But  an  interesting  inquiry 
remains.  We  have  already  endeavoured  to  estimate  what  the 
proper  leadings  of  the  mind  are,  at  the  commencement  and  along 
the  progress  of  the  study.  The  remaining  question  is,  what 
were  the  proper  leadings  of  the  mind  at  the  termination  of  it. 

20.  And  first  it  will  be  seen,  on  the  principles  which  we  have 
already  endeavoured  to  establish,  that  no  alleged  defect  of  evi- 
dence in  Natural  Theology  can  extinguish  the  use  of  it — a  use 
which  might  still  remain,  under  every  conceivable  degree,  whe- 
ther of  dimness  or  of  distinctness  in  its  views.  Even  the  faint 
and  distant  probabilities  of  the  subject,  may  still  lay  upon  us,  the 
duty  of  careful  and  strenuous  inquisition ;  and  that,  long  anterior 
to  our  full  acquaintance  with  the  certainties  of  the  subject.  The 
verisimilitudes  of  the  question  are  the  signal  posts,  by  following 
the  intimations  of  which,  we  are  at  length  conducted  to  the  ve- 
rities of  the  question.  Although  Natural  Theology  therefore 
should  fail  to  illuminate,  yet,  by  a  moral  force  upon  the  attention., 
it  may  fully  retain  the  power  to  impel.  Even  if  it  should  have 
but  some  evidence,  however  slender,  this  should  put  us  at  the 
very  least  into  the  attitudes  of  enquirers  ;  and  the  larger  the  evi- 
dence, the  more  earnest  and  vigilant  ought  the  enquiry  to  be. 
Thus  a  great  object  is  practically  fulfilled  by  Natural  Theology. 


OF    NATURAL    THEOLOGY.  297 

It  gives  us  to  conceive,  or  to  conjecture,  or  to  know  so  much  of 
God,  that,  it^  there  be  a  profest  message  with  the  likely  signa- 
tures upon  it  of  having  proceeded  from  Him — though  not  our 
duty  all  at  once  to  surrender,  it  is  at  least  our  bounden  duty  to 
investigate.  It  may  not  yet  be  entitled  to  a  place  in  our  creed  ; 
but  it  is  at  least  entitled  to  a  place  in  the  threshold  of  the  under- 
standing— where  it  may  wait  the  full  and  fair  examination  of  its 
credentials.  It  may  not  be  easy  to  measure  the  intensity  of  Na- 
ture's light ;  but  enough  if  it  be  a  light,  that,  had  we  obeyed  its 
intimations,  would  have  guided  us  onwards  to  larger  manifesta- 
tions of  the  Deity.  If  Natural  Theology  but  serve  thus  to  fix 
and  direct  our  inquiries,  it  may  fidlil  a  most  important  part  as  the 
precursor  of  revelation.  It  may  not  be  itself  the  temple  ;  but 
it  does  much  by  leading  the  way  to  it.  Even  at  the  outset  pe- 
riod of  our  thickest  ignorance,  there  is  a  voice  which  calls  upon 
us  to  go  forth  in  quest  of  God.  And  in  proportion  as  we  advance, 
does  the  voice  become  more  urgent  and  audible,  in  calling  us  on- 
ward to  further  manifestations.  It  says  much  for  Natural  The- 
ology, that  it  begins  at  the  commencement,  and  carries  us  for- 
ward a  part  of  this  way ;  and  it  has  indeed  discharged  a  most 
important  function,  if,  at  the  point  where  it  guesses  or  its  disco- 
veries terminate,  it  leaves  us  with  as  much  light,  as  should  make 
us  all  awake  to  the  further  notices  of  a  God,  or  as  shall  leave  our 
heedlessness  wholly  inexcusable. 

21.  There  is  a  confused  imagination  with  many,  that  every 
new  accession,  whether  of  evidence  or  of  doctrine,  made  to  the 
Natural,  tends  in  so  far,  to  reduce  the  claims  or  to  depreciate 
the  importance  of  the  Christian  Theology.  The  apprehension 
is,  that  as  the  latter  was  designed  to  supplement  the  insufficiency 
of  the  former — then,  the  more  that  the  arguments  of  Natural 
Theology  are  strengthened,  or  its  truths  are  multiphed  ;  the  more 
are  the  lessons  of  the  Christian  Theology  unheeded  and  uncalled 
for.  It  is  tlms  that  the  discoveries  of  reason  are  held  as  super- 
seding, or  as  casting  a  shade  of  insignificance,  and  even  of  dis- 
credit over  the  discoveries  of  revelation.  There  is  a  certain  dread 
or  jealousy,  with  some  humlde  Christians,  of  all  that  incense 
which  is  offered  at  the  shrine  of  the  divinity  by  human  science — 
whose  daring  incursion  on  the  field  of  Theology,  it  is  thought, 
will,  in  very  proportion  to  the  brilliancy  of  its  success,  adminis- 
ster  both  to  the  proud  independence  of  the  infidel,  and  to  the 
pious  alarm  of  the  believer. 

22.  But  to  mitigate  this  disquietude,  it  should  be  recollected, 
in  the  first  place,  that,  if  Christianity  have  real  and  independent 
evidence  of  being  a  message  from  God,  it  will  be  all  the  more 
humbly  and  respectfully  deferred  to,  should  a  previous  natural 


298  ON    THE    DEFECTS    AND    USES 

theology  have  assured  us  of  His  existence,  and  thrown  the  radi- 
ance of  a  clear  and  satisfying  demonstration  over  the  perfections 
of  His  character.  However  plausihle  its  credentiq^ls  may  be, 
we  should  feel  no  great  interest  in  its  statements  or  its  overtures, 
if  we  doubted  the  reality  of  that  Being  from  whom  it  professes  to 
have  come  ;  and  it  is  precisely  in  as  far  as  we  are  preoccupied 
with  the  conviction  of  a  throne  in  heaven,  and  of  a  God  setting 
upon  that  throne,  that  we  should  receive  what  bore  the  signatures 
of  an  embassy  from  Him  with  awful  reverence. 

23.  But  there  is  anothcir  consideration  still  more  decisive  of 
the  place  and  importance  of  Christianity,  notwithstanding  every 
possible  achievement  by  the  hght  of  nature.  There  are  many 
discoveries  which,  so  far  from  alleviating,  serve  but  to  enhance 
the  difficulties  of  the  question.  For  example,  though  science 
has  made  knovv  n  to  us  the  magnitude  of  the  universe,  it  has  not 
thereby  advanced  one  footstep  towards  the  secret  of  God's  moral 
administration ;  but  has,  in  fact,  receded  to  a  greater  distance, 
from  this  now  more  hopeless,  because  now  more  complex  and 
unmanageable  problem  than  before.  To  multiply  the  data  of  a 
question  is  not  always  the  way  to  facilitate  its  solution  ;  but  often 
the  way,  rather,  to  make  it  more  inextricable.  And  this  is  pre- 
cisely the  effect  of  all  the  discoveries  that  can  be  made  by  natural 
theology,  on  that  problem  which  it  is  the  special  office  of  Chris- 
tianity to  resolve.  With  every  new  argument  by  which  philoso- 
phy enhances  the  goodness  and  greatness  of  the  Supreme  Being, 
does  it  deepen  still  more  the  guilt  and  ingratitude  of  those  who 
have  revolted  against  Him.  The  more  emphatically  it  can  de- 
monstrate the  care  and  benevolence  of  God — the  more  emphati- 
cally, along  with  this,  does  it  demonstrate  the  worthlessness  of 
man.  The  same  light  which  irradiates  the  perfections  of  the  di- 
vine nature,  irradiates,  wdth  more  fearful  manifestation  than  ever, 
the  moral  disease  and  depravation  into  which  humanity  has  fall- 
en. Had  natural  theology  been  altogether  extinct,  and  there 
had  been  no  sense  of  a  law  or  law-giver  among  men,  we  should 
have  been  unconscious  of  any  difficulty  to  be  redressed,  of  any 
dilemma  from  which  we  needed  extrication.  But  the  theology 
of  nature  and  conscience  tells  us  of  a  law  ;  and  in  proportion  as 
it  multiplies  the  claims  of  the  Lawgiver  in  heaven,  docs  it  ag- 
gravate the  criminality  of  its  subjects  upon  earth.  With  the  re- 
bellious phenomenon  of  a  depraved  species  before  our  eyes, 
every  new  discovery  of  God,  but  deepens  the  enigma  of  man's 
condition  in  time,  and  of  his  prospects  in  eternity  ;  and  so  makes 
the  louder  call  for  that  remedial  system,  "which  it  is  the  very  pur- 
pose of  Christianity  to  introduce  into  the  world. 

24.  We  hold  that  the  theology  of  nature  sheds  powerful  light 


OF    NATURAL    THEOLOGY.  299 

on  the  being  of  a  God  ;   and  that,  even  from  its  unaided  demon- 
strations, we  can  reach  a  considerable  degree  of  probabiHty,  both 
for  His  moral  and  natural  attributes.     But  when  it  undertakes 
the  question  between  God  and  man,   this  is  what  it  finds  to  be 
impracticable.     It  is  here  where  the  main  helplessness  of  nature 
lies.     It  is  baffled  in  all  its  attempts  to  decipher  the  state  and  the 
prospects  of  man,  viewed  in  the  relation  of  an  offending  subject 
to  an  offended  sovereign.     In  a  word,  its  chief  obscin-ity,  and 
Avhich  it  is  wholly   unable  to  disperse,  is   that  which  rests  on  the 
hopes  and  the  destiny  of  our  species.    There?  is  in  it  enough  of  ma- 
nifestation  to  awaken  the  fears  of  guilt,  but  not  enough  again  to 
appease  them.     It  emits,  and  audibly  emits,  a  note  of  terror  ;  but 
in  vain  do  we  listen  for  one  authentic  word  of  comfort  from  any 
ot  its  oracles.     It  is  able  to  see   the  danger,  but  not  the  deliver- 
ance.    It  can  excite  the  forebodings  of  the  human  spirit,  but 
cannot  quell  them — knowing  just  enough  to  stir  the  perplexity, 
but  not  enough  to  set  the  perplexity  at  rest.     It  can  state  the 
difficulty,  but  cannot  unriddle  the  difficulty- — having  just  as  much 
knowledge  as  to   enunciate  the  problem,   but  not  so  much  as 
might  lead  to  the   solution  of  the   problem.     There   must  be  a 
measure  of  light,  we  do  allow  ;  but,  like  the  lurid  gleam  of  a  vol- 
cano, it  is  not  a  light  which  guides,  but  which  bewilders  and  ter- 
rifies.    It  prompts  the  question,  but  cannot  frame  or  furnish  the 
reply.     Natural  theology  may  see  as   much  as  shall  draw  forth 
the  anxious  interrogation,  "  What  shall  I  do  to  be  saved  ?"     The 
answer  to  this  comes  from  a  higher  theology. 

25.  These  are  the  grounds  on  which  we  would  affirm  the 
insufficiency  of  that  academic  theism,  which  is  sometimes  set 
forth  in  such  an  aspect  of  completeness  and  certainty,  as  might 
seem  to  leave  a  revelation  or  a  gospel  wholly  uncalled  for. 
Many  there  are  who  woidd  gloss  over  the  difficulties  of  the  ques- 
tion ;  and  who  in  the  midst  of  all  that  undoubted  outraire  which 
has  been  inflicted  by  sinful  creatures  on  the  truth  and  the  holi- 
ness and  the  justice  of  God,  would,  by  merging  all  the  attributes 
of  the  Divinity  into  a  placid  and  undistinguishing  tenderness,  still 
keep  their  resolute  hold  of  heaven,  as  at  least  the  splendid  ima- 
gination, by  which  to  irradiate  the  destinies  of  our  species.  It 
is  thus  that  an  airy  unsupported  romance  has  been  held  forth  as 
the  vehicle,  on  which  to  embark  all  the  hopes  and  the  hazards  of 
eternity.  We  would  not  disguise  the  meagreness  of  such  a  sys- 
tem. We  would  not  deliver  the  lessons  of  natural  theolofjv, 
without  telling  at  the  same  time  of  its  limits.  We  abjure  the 
cruelty  of  that  sentimentalism,  which,  to  hush  the  alarms  of  guilty 
man,  would  rob  the  Deity  of  his  perfections,  and  stamp  a  degra- 
ding mockery  upon  his  law.     When  expounding  the  arguments 


300  ON    THE    DEFECTS    AND    USES 

of  natural  theology,  along  with  the  doctrines  which  it  dimly 
shadows  forth,  we  must  speak  of  the  difficulties  which  itself  sug- 
gests but  which  it  cannot  dispose  of;  we  must  make  mention  of 
the  obscurities  into  which  it  runs,  but  which  it  is  unable  to  dis- 
sipate— of  its  unresolved  doubts — of  the  mysteries  through  which 
it  vainly  tries  to  grope  its  uncertain  way — of  its  weary  and  fruit- 
less efforts — of  its  unutterable  longings.  And  should,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  speculations  of  human  ingenuity,  and,  on  the  other, 
the  certainties  of  a  well  accredited  revelation,  come  forth  to  illu- 
minate this  scene  of  darkness — we  must  not  so  idolize  the  light 
or  the  sufficiency  of  nature,  as  to  turn  from  the  firmament's  me- 
ridian blaze,  that  we  might  witness  and  admire  the  tiny  lustre 
of  a  glow-worm. 

26.   The  tvvo   positions  are  perfectly  reconcileable — first  of 
the  insufficiency  of  natural  religion ;    and   secondly,  the  great 
actual  importance  of  it.     It  is  the  wise  and  profound  saymg  of 
D'Alembert,  that, '  man  has  too  little  sagacity  to  resolve  an  infi- 
nity of  questions,  which  he  has  yet  sagacity  enough  to  make.' 
Now  this  marks  the  degree,  in  which  natural  theology  is  saga- 
cious— being  able,  from  its  own  resources,  to  construct  a  number 
of  cases,  which  at  the  same  time  it  is  not  able  to  reduce.     These 
must  be  handed  up  for  solution  to  a  higher  calculus ;  and  thus  it  is, 
that  the  theology  of  nature  and  of  the  schools,  the  theology  of  the 
ethical  class — though  most  unsatisfactory,  when  treated  as  a  ter- 
minating science — is  most  important,  and  the  germ  of  develope- 
ments  at  once  precious  and  delightful,  when  treated  as  a  rudi- 
mental  one.     It  is  a  science,  not  so  much  of  dicta  as  of  desiderata ; 
and,  from  the  v/ay  in  which  these  are  met  by  the  counterpart 
doctrines  of  the  gospel,  the  hght  of  a  powerful  and  most  pleasing 
evidence  is  struck  out  by  the  comparison  between  them.     It  is 
that  species  of  evidence  which  arises  from  the  adaptation  of  a 
mould  to  its  counterpart  form  ;  for  there  is  precisely  this  sort  of 
fitting,  in  the  adjustment  which  obtains,  between  the  questions  of 
the  natural  and  the  responses  of  the  supernatural  theology.     For 
the  problem  which  natural  theology  cannot  resolve,  the  precise 
difficulty  which  it  is  wholly  unable  to  meet  or  to  overcome,  is  the 
restoration  of  sinners  to   acceptance  and    favour   with   a  God 
of  justice.     All  the  resources  and  expedients  of  natural  theology 
are  incompetent  for  this  solution — it  lieing,  in  fact,  the  great  de- 
sideratum which  it  cannot  satisfy.     Still  it  performs  an  important 
part  in  making  us  sensible  of  the  desideratum.     It  makes  known 
to  us  our  sin  ;  but  it  cannot  make  known  to  us  salvation.     Let 
us  not  overlook  the  importance  of  that  which  it  does,  in  its  utter 
helplessness  as  to  that  which  it  does  not.     It  puts  the  question, 
though  it  cannot  answer  the  question ;  and  no  where  so  much  as 


OP    NATURAL    THEOLOGY.  301 

at  this  turning-point,  are  both  the  uses  and  the  defects  of  natural 
theology  so  conspicuously  blended. 

27.  Natural  theology  then,  however  little  to  be  trusted  as  an 
informer,  yet  as  an  enquirer,  or  rather  as  a  prompter  to  enquiry, 
is  of  inestimable  service.     It  is  a  high  function  that  she  dis- 
charges, for  though  not  able  to  satisfy  the  search  she  impels  to 
the  search.     We  are  apt  to  undervalue,  if  not  to  set  her  aside 
altogether,  when  we  compare  her  obscure  and  imperfect  notices 
with  the  lustre  and  the  fulness  of  revelation.     But  this  is  be- 
cause we  overlook  the  virtue  that  lies  in  the  probabilities  of  a 
subject — a  virtue,  either,  on  the  one  hand,  to  fasten  the  atten- 
tion ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  to  condemn  the  want  of  it.     This 
we  hold  to  be  the  precise  office  of  natural  theology — and  an  of- 
fice too,  which  she  performs,  not  merely  as  the  theology  of  sci- 
ence among  those  who  listen  to  he**  demonstrations  in  the  aca- 
demic hall ;    but  which  she  also  performs  with  powerful  and 
practical  effect,  as  the  theology  of  conscience,  throughout  all  the 
classes  of  our  general  population.     It  is  this  initial  work  which 
makes  her  so  useful,  we  should  say  so  indispensable,  as  a  pre- 
liminary to  the  gospel.     Natural  theology  is  quite  overrated  by 
those  who  would  represent  it  as  the  foundation  of  the  edifice. 
It  is  not  that,  but  rather  the  taper  by  which  we  must  grope  our 
way  to  the  edifice.     The  stability  of  a  fabric  is  not  greater  than 
the  stability  of  that  upon  which  it  rests  ;  and  it  were  inscribing  a 
general  infirmity  to  revelation,  to  set  it  forth,  as  leaning  upon  na- 
tural theism,  in  the  way  that  a  mathematical  doctrine  leans  upon 
the  axioms  or  first  principles  of  the  science.     Christianity  rests 
on  its  own  proper  evidence  ;  and  if,  instead  of  this,  she  be  made 
to  rest  on  an  antecedent  natural  religion,  she  becomes   weak 
throughout  because  weak  radically.     It  is  true  that  in  theology, 
the  natural  goes  before  the  revealed,  even  as  the  cry  of  weak- 
ness or  distress  goes  before  the  relief  to  which  it  aspires,  and 
which  it  is  prompted  to  seek  after.     It  goes  before,  not  synthe- 
tically in  the  order  of  demonstration,  but  historically  in  the  mind 
of  the  enquirer.     It  is  not  that  natural  religion  is  the   premises, 
and  Christianity  the  conclusion ;  but  it  is  that  natural  religion 
creates  an  appetite  which  it  cannot  quell ;  and  he  who  is  urged 
thereby,  seeks  for  a  rest  and  a  satisfaction  which  he  can  only  ob- 
tain in  the  fulness  of  the  gospel.     Natural   theology  has   been 
called  the  basis  of  Christianity.     It  would  accord  better  with  our 
own  views  of  the  place  which  it  occupies,  and  of  the  high  purpose 
which  it  undoubtedly  serves — if  it  were  called  the  basis  of  Chris- 
tianization. 

28.  The  most  important  exemplification  of  the  way  in  which 
natural  rehgion  bears  upon  Christianity,  is  furnished  by  the  ques- 
26 


302  ON    THE    DEFECTS    AND    USES 

tion  of  a  sinner's  acceptance  with  God.  Natural  religion  can 
suggest  to  man  the  apprehension  of  his  guilt ;  for  however  dim 
her  objective  view  of  the  Deity,  there  is  no  such  dimness  in  her 
ethical  notion  of  what  is  due  even  to  an  uncertain  God.  Without 
having  seriously  resolved  the  question,  we  may  stand  convicted 
to  our  own  minds  of  a  hardened  and  habitual  carelessness  of  the 
question.  If  our  whole  lives  long  have  been  spent  in  the  midst 
of  created  things,  without  any  serious  or  sustained  effort  of  our 
spirits  in  quest  of  a  Creator — if,  as  our  consciences  can  tell,  the 
whole  drift  and  practical  earnestness  of  our  thoughts  are  towards 
the  gifts,  with  but  a  rare  and  occasional  anxiety  towards  the 
Giver — if  the  sense  of  Him  touch  but  lightly  on  our  spirits,  and 
we,  by  our  perpetual  lapses  from  the  sacred  to  the  secular,  prove 
that  our  gravitation  is  to  earth,  and  that  in  truth  our  best-loved 
element  is  atheism — if  the  notices  of  a  God,  however  indistinct 
wherewith  we  are  surrounded,  instead  of  fastening  our  regards 
'  on  this  high  contemplation,  do  but  disturb  without  at  all  influen- 
cing the  general  tenor  of  our  engagements — these  are  things  of 
which  the  light  of  Nature  can  take  cognizance ;  and  these  are 
things  because  of  which,  and  of  their  felt  unworthiness,  nature  is 
visited  by  the  misgivings  both  of  remorse  and  of  terror.  She  has 
data  enough  on  which  to  found  the  demonstration  and  the  sense 
of  her  own  unworthiness  ;  and  hence  a  general  feeling  of  inse- 
curity among  all  spirits,  a  secret  but  strong  apprehension  that  all 
is  not  right  between  them  and  God. 

29.  This  is  not  a  matter  of  mere  sensitive  and  popular  im- 
pression ;  but  in  strict  accordance  with  the  views  of  a  calm  and 
intelligent  jurisprudence.  It  enters  into  the  very  essence  of  our 
conception  of  a  moral  government,  that  it  must  have  sanctions — 
which  could  not  have  place,  were  there  either  to  be  no  dispensa- 
tion of  rewards  and  punishments  ;  or  were  the  penalties,  though 
denounced  with  all  the  parade  and  proclamation  of  law,  to  be  ne- 
ver executed.  It  is  not  the  lesson  of  conscience,  that  God  would, 
under  the  mere  impulse  of  a  parental  fondness  for  the  creatures 
whom  He  had  made,  let  down  the  high  state  and  sovereignty 
which  belong  to  Him  ;  or  that  He  would  forbear  the  infliction  of 
the  penalty,  iDecause  of  any  soft  or  timid  shrinking  from  the  pain 
it  would  give  to  the  objects  of  His  displeasure.  There  is  nothing 
either  in  history  or  nature,  which  countenances  such  an  imagina- 
tion of  the  Deity,  as  that,  in  the  relentings  of  mere  tenderness, 
He  would  stoop  to  any  weak  or  unworthy  compromise  with  guilt. 
The  actual  sufferings  of  life  speak  loudly  and  experimentally 
against  the  supposition ;  and  when  one  looks  to  the  disease  and 
the  agony  of  spirit,  and  above  all  the  hideous  and  unsparing 
death,  with  its  painful  struggles  and  gloomy  forebodings,  which 


OF    NATURAL    THEOLOGY.  303 

are  spread  universally  over  the  face  of  the  earth — we  cannot  but 
imagine  of  the  God  who  presides  over  such  an  economy,  that  He 
is  not  a  being  who  will  falter  from  the  imposition  of  any  severity, 
which  might  serve  the  objects  of  a  high  administration.  Else  all 
steadfastness  of  purpose,  and  steadfastness  of  principle  were 
fallen  from.  God  would  stand  forth  to  the  eye  of  His  own  crea- 
tures, a  spectacle  of  outraged  dignity.  And  He  of  whom  we 
image  that  He  dwells  in  an  unviolable  sanctuary,  the  august 
monarch  of  heaven  and  earth — with  a  law  by  subjects  dishonour- 
ed, by  the  sovereign  unavenged — would  possess  but  the  sem- 
blance and  the  mockery  of  a  throne. 

30.   Such  a  conception  is  not  only  a  violence  to  the  apprehen- 
sions of  nature,  but  is  even  acknowledged  at  times  by  our  aca- 
demic theists,  as  a  violence  to  the  sound  philosophy  of  the  sub- 
ject.    The  most  striking  testimony  to  this  effect  is  that  given 
by  Dr.  Adam  Smith,  on  the  first  appearance  of  his  "Theory  of 
Moral  Sentiments;"  nor  does  it  detract  from  its  interest  or  its 
value,  that  he  afterwards  suppressed  it  in  the  subsequent  editions 
of  his  work. — "All  our  natural  sentiments,"  he  says,  "prompt 
us  to  believe,  that  as  perfect  virtue  is  supposed  necessarily  to 
appear  to  the  Deity  as  it  does  to  us,  as  for  its  own  sake  and 
without  any  farther  view,  the  natural  and  proper  object  of  love 
and  reward,  so  must  vice  of  hatred  and  punishment.     That  the 
gods  neither  resent  nor  hurt  was  the  general  maxim  of  all  the 
different  sects  of  the  ancient  philosophy  ;  and  if  by  resenting,  be 
understood  that  violent  and  disorderly  perturbation  which  often 
distracts  and  confounds  the  human  heart ;  or  if  by  hurting,  be 
understood  the  doing  of  mischief  wantonly,  and  without  re- 
gard to  propriety  or  justice,  such  weakness  is  undoubtedly  un- 
worthy of  the  divine  perfection.     But  if  it  be  meant  that  vice  does 
not  appear  to  the  Deity  to  be  for  its  own  sake  the  object  of  abhor- 
rence and  aversion,  and  what  for  its  own  sake,  it  is  fit  and  rea- 
sonable should  be  punished,  the  truth  of  this  maxim  can  by  no 
means  be  so  easily  admitted.     If  we  consult  our  natural  senti- 
ments we  are  apt  to  fear  lest  before  the  holiness  of  God,  vice 
should  appear  to  be  more  worthy  of  punishment,  than  the  weak- 
ness and  imperfection  of  human  virtue  can  ever  seem  to  be  of 
reward.     Man  when  about  to  appear  before  a  Being  of  infinite 
perfection,  can  feel  but  little  confidence  in  his  own  merit,  or  in 
the  imperfect  propriety  of  his  own  conduct.     In  the  presence  of 
his  fellow  creatures  he  may  often  justly  elevate  himself,  and  may 
often  have  reason  to  think  highly  of  his  own  character  and  con- 
duct, compared  to  the  still  greater  imperfection  of  theirs.     But 
the  case  is  quite  different,  when  about  to  appear  before  his  infi- 
nite Creator.     To  such  a  Being,  he  can  scarcely  imagine,  that 


304  ON    THE    DEFECTS    AND    USES 

his  littleness  and  weakness  should  ever  appear  to  be  the  proper 
objects  either  of  esteem  or  of  reward.     But  he  can  easily  con- 
ceive how  the  numberless  violations  of  duty,  of  which  he  has 
been  guilty,  should  render  him  the  proper  object  of  aversion  and 
punishment ;  neither  can  he  see  any  reason  why  the  divine  in- 
dignation should  not  be  let  loose,  without  any  restraint,  upon  so 
vile  an  insect  as  he  is  sensible  that  he  himself  must  appear  to 
be.     If  he  would  still  hope  for  happiness,  ho  is  conscious  that  he 
cannot  demand  it  from  the  justice  ;  but  he  must  entreat  it  from 
the  mercy  of  God.     Repentance,  sorrow,  humiliation,  contrition 
at  the  thought  of  his  past  misconduct,  are  upon  this  account  the 
sentiments  which  become  him,  and  seem  to  be  the  only  means 
which  he  has  left,  for  appeasing  that  wrath  which  he  knows  he 
has  justly  provoked.     He  even  distrusts  the  efficacy  of  all  these, 
and  naturally  fears  lest  the  wisdom  of  God  should  not,  like  the 
weakness  of  man,   be  prevailed  upon  to  spare  the  crime  by  the 
most  importunate  lamentations  of  the  criminal.     Some  other  in- 
tercession, some  other  sacrifice,  some  other  atonement,  he  ima- 
gines must  be  made  for  him,  beyond  Vvhat  he  himself  is  capable 
of  making,  before  the  purity  of  the  divine  justice  can  be  recon- 
ciled to  his  manifold  offences.     The  doctrines  of  revelation  coin- 
cide in  every  respect  with  these  original  anticipations  of  nature ; 
and  as  they  teach  us  how  little  we  can  depend  upon  the  imper- 
fection of  our  own  virtue,  so  they  show  us  at  the  same  time  that 
the  most  powerful  intercession  has  been  made,  and  that  the  most 
dreadful  atonement  has  been  paid,  for  our  manifold  transgressions 
and  iniquities." 

31.  This  interesting  passage  seems  to  have  been  written  by 
its  author,  under  a  true  apprehension  of  that  dilemma,  in  which 
the  world  is  involved.  He  admits  a  moral  government  on  the 
part  of  God.  He  admits  a  universal  delinquency  on  the  part  of 
man.  And  his  feeling  is,  that  the  government  would  be  nullified 
by  a  mere  act  of  indemnity,  which  rendered  no  acknowledgment 
to  the  justice  which  had  been  violated,  or  to  the  authority  of  that 
law  which  had  been  trampled  on.  In  these  circumstances,  he 
casts  about  as  it  were  for  an  adjustment ;  and  puts  forth  a  con- 
jectural speculation  ;  and  guesses  what  the  provision  should  be, 
which,  under  a  new  economy,  might  be  adopted  for  repairing  a 
defect,  that  is  evidently  beyond  all  the  resources  of  natural  the- 
ism ;  and  proposes  the  very  expedient  of  our  profest  revelation, 
for  the  resolving  of  a  difficulty  which  had  been  else  impractica- 
ble. We  deem  it  a  melancholy  fact,  that  this  noble  testimony 
to  the  need  of  a  gospel,  should  have  disappeared  in  the  posterior 
editions  of  his  work — revised  and  corrected  as  they  were  by  his 
own  hand.     It  is  not  for  men  to  sit  in  the  chair  of  judgment ; 


OF    NATURAL    THEOLOGY.  305 

and  never  should  they  feel  a  greater  awe  or  tenderness  upon  their 
spirits,  than  when  called  to  witness  or  to  pronounce  upon  the 
aberrations  of  departed  genius.  Yet  when  one  compares  the 
passage  he  could  at  one  time  have  written,  with  the  memoir  that, 
after  an  interval  of  many  years,  he  gave  to  the  world  of  David 
Hume,  that  ablest  champion  of  the  infidel  cause — one  fears  lest, 
under  the  contagion  of  a  near  and  withering  intimacy  with  him, 
his  spirit  may  have  imbibed  of  the  kindred  poison ;  and  he  at 
length  have  become  ashamed,  of  the  homage  that  he  once  had 
rendered  to  the  worth  and  importance  of  Christianity. 

32.  This  notwithstanding  remains  one  of  the  finest  examples 
of  the  way,  in  which  the  Natural  bears  upon  the  Christian  the- 
ology ;  and  of  the  outgoings,  by  which,  the  one  conducts  to  a 
landing-place  in  the  other.  We  hold  that  there  are  many  such 
outgoings  ;  that  at  the  uttermost  margin  of  the  former  there  is  a 
felt  want,  and  that  in  accurate  counterpart  to  this,  the  latter  has 
something  to  offer  in  precise  and  perfect  adaptation  thereto. 
Now  the  great  error  of  our  academic  theism,  as  commonly  treat- 
ed, is  that  it  expresses  no  want ;  that  it  reposes  in  its  own  fancied 
sufficiency  ;  and  all  its  landing-places  are  within  itself,  and  along 
the  uttermost  limits  of  its  own  territory.  It  is  no  reproach 
against  our  philosophical  moralists,  that  they  have  not  stepped 
beyond  the  threshold  of  that  peculium,  which  is  strictly  and  ap- 
propriately theirs ;  or  not  made  incursion  into  another  depart- 
ment than  their  own.  The  legitimate  complaint  is,  that,  on 
taking  leave  of  their  disciples,  they  warn  them  not,  of  their  being 
only  yet  at  the  outset  or  in  the  prosecution  of  a  journey,  instead 
of  having  reached  the  termination  of  it.  They  in  fact  take  leave 
of  them,  in  the  middle  of  an  unprotected  highway — when  they 
should  have  reared  a  finger  post  of  direction  to  the  places  which 
lie  beyond.  The  paragraph  which  we  have  now  extracted,  was 
just  such  a  finger  post — though  taken  down,  we  deeply  regret  to 
say,  by  the  very  hand  that  had  erected  it.  Our  veneration  for 
his  name  must  not  restrain  the  observation,  that,  by  this,  he  un- 
did the  best  service  which  a  professor  of  moral  science  can  render 
to  humanity.  Along  the  confines  of  its  domain,  there  should  be 
raised,  in  every  quarter,  the  floating  signals  of  distress,  that  its 
scholars,  instead  of  being  lulled  into  the  imagination  that  now 
they  may  repose  as  in  so  many  secure  and  splendid  dwelling 
places,  should  be  taught  to  regard  them  only  as  towers  of  obser- 
vation— whence  they  have  to  look  for  their  ulterior  guidance  and 
their  ulterior  supplies,  to  the  region  of  a  conterminous  the- 
ology. 

33.  There  is  a  difficulty  here  in  the  theism  of  nature,  within 
the  whole  comoass  of  which,  no  solution  for  it  can  be  found.     It 

26* 


306  ON    THE    DEFECTS    AND    USES 

will  at  least  afford  a  specimen  of  the  way  in  which  the  one  bears 
upon  the  other,  if  we  state  the  method  of  escape  from  this  diffi- 
culty that  has  been  provided  in  the  theism  of  Christianity.  The 
great  moral  problem  which  under  the  former  waits  to  be  resolved, 
is  to  find  acceptance  in  the  mercy  of  God,  for  those  who  have 
braved  His  justice,  and  done  despite  to  the  authority  of  His  law, 
nnd  that,  without  any  compromise  of  truth  or  dignity.  By  the 
offered  solution  of  the  New  Testament,  a  channel  has  been 
opened  up,  through  a  high  mediatorship  between  God  and  man, 
for  the  descent  of  a  grace  and  a  mercy  the  most  exuberant  on  a 
guilty  world  ;  and  through  it,  the  overtures  of  reconciliation  are 
extended  unto  all;  and  a  sceptre  of  forgiveness,  but  of  forgive- 
ness consecrated  by  the  blood  of  a  great  atonement,  has  been 
stretched  forth,  even  to  the  most  polluted  and  worthless  outcasts 
of  the  human  family;  and  thus  the  goodness  of  the  divinity  ob- 
tained its  fullest  vindication,  yet  not  a  goodness  at  the  expense  of 
justice — for  the  affront  done  to  an  outraged  law,  has  been  amply 
repaired  by  the  homage  to  its  authority  of  an  illustrious  sutTerer, 
who  took  upon  himself  the  burthen  of  all  those  penalties  which  we 
should  have  borne  ;  and,  in  the  spectacle  of  whose  deep  and 
mysterious  sacrifice,  God's  hatred  of  moral  evil  stands  forth  in 
most  impressive  demonstration.  So  that,  instead  of  a  conflict 
or  a  concussion  between  these  two  essential  attributes  of  His  na- 
ture, a  way  has  been  found,  by  wliich  each  is  enhanced  to  the 
uttermost,  and  a  flood  of  most  copious  and  convincing  illustra- 
tion has  been  poured  upon  them  both. 

34.  This  specimen  will  best  illustrate  of  moral  philosophy, 
even  in  its  most  finished  state,  that  it  is  not  what  may  be  called 
a  terminating  science.  It  is  at  best  but  a  science  in  transiin  ; 
and  its  lessons  are  those  of  a  preparatory  school.  It  contains  but 
the  rudiments  of  a  nobler  acquirement ;  and  he  discharges  be«t 
the  functions  of  a  teacher,  not  who  satiates  but  who  excites  the 
appetite,  and  then  leaves  it  wholly  unappeased.  This  arif^es 
from  the  real  state  and  bearing  of  the  science,  as  being  a  science, 
not  so  much  of  doctrines  as  of  desiderata.  At  most  it  leaves  its 
scholars  in  a  sort  of  twilight  obscurity.  And,  if  a  just  account  is 
rendered  of  the  subject,  there  will  unavoidably  be  the  feeling, 
that,  instead  of  having  reached  a  secure  landing-place,  we  have 
broken  off,  as  in  the  middle  of  an  unfinished  demonstration. 

35.  That  indeed  is  a  most  interesting  adjustment  between 
Moral  Philosophy  and  the  Christian  Theology,  which  is  repre- 
sented to  us  by  the  unresolved  difficulties  of  the  one  science,  and 
the  reduction  which  is  made  of  these  difficulties  in  the  other. 
We  have  far  the  most  important  example  of  this,  in  the  doctrine 
of  the  atonement — that  sublime  mystery,  by  which  the  attributes 


OF    NATURAL    THEOLOGY.  307 

v)f  the  divinity  have  all  been  harmonized  ;  and  the  most  liberal 
Outlet  has  been  provided  for  mercy  to  the  offender,  while  still 
the  truth  and  justice  of  the  Lawgiver  have  been  vindicated,  and 
all  the  securities  of  His  moral  government  arc  upholden.  By 
the  disloyalty  of  our  race,  the  principles  of  Heaven's  jurispru- 
dence arc  brought  to  a  test  of  utmost  delicacy  ;  for  there  seems 
to  be  no  other  alternative,  than  that  man  should  perish  in  over- 
whelming vengeance,  or  that  God  should  become  a  degraded 
sovereign.  It  nullifies  the  moral  government  of  the  world,  if  all 
force  and  authority  be  taken  from  its  sanctions  ;  and  it  is  a  pro- 
blem which  even  '  angels  desired  to  look  into,'  how  the  breach 
could  be  healed,  which  had  been  made  by  this  world's  rebellion, 
and  yet  the  honour  of  heaven's  high  Sovereign  be  untarnished 
by  the  compromise.  The  one  science  lands  us  in  the  difficul- 
ty ;  and  by  the  other  alone  it  is,  that  we  arc  extricated.  The 
one  presents  us  with  the  case  ;  but,  for  the  solution  of  it,  we  must 
recur  to  a  higher  calculus,  to  an  instrument  of  more  powerful 
discovery  and  of  fuller  revelation.  The  one  starts  a  question 
which  itself  cannot  untie  ;  and  the  other  furnishes  the  satisfactory 
lesponse  to  it.  The  desideratum  of  the  former  meets  with  the 
doctrine  of  the  latter;  and  it  is  this  frequent  adjustment,  as  of  a 
mould  to  its  counterpart  die  ;  it  is  this  close  and  manifold  adap- 
tation between  the  wants  of  nature  and  the  overtures  of  a  profest 
revelation  ;  it  is  this  fitting  of  the  supernal  application  to  the  ter- 
restrial subject  upon  which  it  is  laid  ;  it  is  the  way,  more  espe- 
cially, in  which  the  disruption  between  heaven  and  earth  has 
been  restored,  and  the  frightful  chasm  that  sin  had  made  on  the 
condition  and  prospects  of  our  species  is  wholly  repaired  to  all 
who  will  through  the  completeness  of  an  offered  Saviour;  it  is 
this  mingled  harmony  of  the  greater  and  lesser  lights,  which 
gives  evidence  that  both  have  been  kindled  by  the  same  hand, 
and  that  it  is  lie  who  put  the  candle  which  glimmers  so  feebly 
into  my  heart,  it  is  He  also  who  poured  the  noonday  effulgence 
of  Christianity  around  me. 

36.  It  were  foreign  to  our  prescribed  subject  to  attempt  an 
exposition,  in  however  brief  and  rapid  a  sketch,  of  the  creden- 
tials of  Christianity.  We  only  remark,  that,  amid  the  lustre  and 
variety  of  its  proofs,  there  is  one  strikingly  analogous,  and  in- 
deed identical  in  principle,  with  our  own  peculiar  argument.  If 
in  the  system  of  external  nature,  we  can  recognize  the  evidence 
of  God  being  its  author,  in  the  adaptations  wherewith  it  teems  to 
the  Moral  and  Intellectual  Constitution  of  Man — there  is  room 
and  opportunity  for  this  very  evidence  in  the  book  of  an  external 
revelation.  What  appears  in  the  construction  of  a  world  might 
be  made  to  appear  as  manifestly  in  the  construction  of  a  volume, 


308  ON    THE    DEFECTS    AND    USES,    &.C. 

whose  objective  truths  may  present  as  obvious  and  skilful  an  ac- 
commodation to  our  mental  economy,  as  do  the  objective  things 
of  a  created  universe.  And  it  is  not  the  less  favourable,  for  an 
indication  of  its  divine  original  that  whereas  Nature,  as  being 
the  original  system,  abounds  with  those  fitnesses  which  harmo- 
nize with  the  mental  constitution  in  a  state  of  health — Chris- 
tianity, as  being  a  restorative  system,  abounds  in  fitnesses  to 
the  same  constitution  in  a  state  of  disease.  We  are  not  sure 
but  that  in  the  latter,  from  its  very  design,  wc  shall  meet  with 
still  more  delicate  and  decisive  tests  of  a  designer,  than  have 
yet  been  noticed  in  the  former ;  and  certain  it  is,  that  the  wis- 
dom and  goodness  and  even  power  of  a  moral  architect,  may  be 
as  strikingly  evinced  in  the  reparation,  as  in  the  primary  esta- 
blishment of  a  Moral  Nature. 


THE    END. 


6458  TB  297i 

ll-lB-00  32180      MS 


'm^ 


Princeton  Theo 


ogical  Seminary  Libraries 


1    1012  0121 


8  2723 


DATE   DUE 


PRINTED  !N  USA. 


GAYLORD 


